


quantico

by novoaa1



Category: Criminal Minds (US TV)
Genre: Aaron Hotchner is the best team dad ever, Alternate Universe - Teenagers, And I think that's it?, Bullying, F/F, Getting Together, Group Home, Immanuel Kant n all that, Implied/Referenced Child Abuse, JEmily is cute, JJ's the newest kid in the group home, Jennifer "JJ" Jareau-centric, Kid Emily Prentiss, Kid Jennifer "JJ" Jareau, Mutual Pining, POV Jennifer "JJ" Jareau, Past Abuse, Past Child Abuse, Past Rape/Non-con, Past Sexual Abuse, Protective Aaron Hotchner, Teacher David Rossi, They all have baggage, a class on ethics! which is cool, and cute, and sad, cause its the worst, everyone hates p.e., i'll add tags as i go, it's cute, mentions of abuse, probably not, so theres that, tragic backstories, uhhhhh, um
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2019-06-15
Updated: 2020-01-01
Packaged: 2020-05-12 06:21:39
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 10
Words: 21,019
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/19223407
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/novoaa1/pseuds/novoaa1
Summary: All the BAU kids in a group home together, with Hotch as their caretaker.Everyone's damaged, and a little bit broken, but somehow, they make it work.(Main pairing is JJ x Emily.)





	1. day one

**Author's Note:**

> okay i have a couple chapters written out for this one, and the updates will probably be kinda slow cause i've got some other stories i gotta wrap up but i've been thinking about this one for a while so here it is
> 
> also idk if this is something people will want to keep up with and read at all, so feel free to let me know any feedback....

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> JJ's the new kid at a group home in Virginia, and she's not all that excited about it. 
> 
> She meets Hotch, and a gorgeous girl named Emily... so maybe it won't be so bad after all.

Jennifer Jareau gripped the straps of her grey Jansport backpack tightly in either hand, steeling herself as she took in the two-story earthy cabin-like house before her in the afternoon sunlight with apprehensive eyes—her new home, for the foreseeable future. 

 

(Probably for the next year or so until she turned 18, if she was being perfectly frank with herself—there wasn’t exactly a super high adoption rate for 17-year-old kids in the foster system.)

 

The social worker ( _her_ social worker, she supposed) Karen (a middle-aged woman with a slight Southern accent who kept calling JJ ‘honey’), gave her a tight lipstick-red smile that JJ didn’t bother returning before the woman was reaching out a hand to press the doorbell, faint ringing noises coming from the inside in a rhythmic (but decidedly generic) pattern. 

 

JJ fidgeted uncomfortably with her hands as they stood on the front stoop in silence, but a second later the door swung open to reveal a scary-looking man probably in his 40's with short black hair, chocolate brown eyes, and a very unfortunate case of what Ros would call 'Resting Bitch Face'—instantly, JJ shrunk even further into herself (in reaction to both the unwelcoming look on his features and the unwitting resurgence of her long-dead older sister into her thoughts), even as she painstakingly forced herself not to be obvious about it.

 

“Hello!” Karen chirped cheerfully from beside JJ in her annoyingly high-pitched voice, and JJ withheld a shiver when the scary man didn’t return it with a smile—instead, he merely gave a sharp nod of acknowledgement, his dark eyes coming to hover unwaveringly on JJ. “This,” Karen chirped, gesturing towards JJ, “is Jennifer.”

 

_JJ_ , she corrected in her head, the sound of her full name sending chills down her spine. 

 

“It’s nice to meet you, Jennifer,” the man said, his voice surprisingly gentle as he reached out a hand for her to shake. “I’m Aaron Hotchner. Most of the kids just call me Hotch."

 

After a moment’s hesitation, she took it—his hand dwarfed hers in alarming fashion, but his touch was warm and soft, palms rough and calloused, just like JJ’s.

 

(She’d worked on her parents’ farm for the majority of her life—instead of sweeping and washing dishes for her chores like most other kids in the ‘burbs and the city, she mucked stalls and cleaned the horses and, when she was old enough to swing an axe, chopped wood.

 

Honestly, JJ didn’t much mind the manual labor after a while—it became comforting, almost, though heaven knew the stink of an uncleaned horse's stall never got any easier to endure over the years.)

 

“Nice to meet you, too,” she mumbled, eyes darting up to meet his for a brief moment—she was slightly alarmed at what she saw there, because it was something that looked a hell of a lot like… like _kindness_. Compassion. 

 

(JJ knew damn well not to trust that—if anything, this man was probably the most dangerous kind of scary: the kind that could hide his cruelty to gain her trust, lure her into a false sense of security before hurting her in the worst way possible.

 

Punches and kicks and being forced into sex always hurt a hell of a lot worse when you weren’t expecting it.

 

So no, she didn’t trust this "Hotch" character or the suspicious kindness sparkling in his chocolate brown eyes; if anything, she just made a mental note to avoid getting on his bad side, because she most certainly didn’t want to know what he’d do once he got angry.)

 

“Oh!” Karen exclaimed, bright green eyes focused on the fake designer watch on her wrist. “Look at the time,” she chuckled, like she’d just made an especially funny joke—neither Hotch nor JJ laughed. “I have to be heading back. Are you okay here, honey?” she asked, turning to JJ with overly theatric pity splayed across her powdered features. 

 

JJ fought the urge to roll her eyes. “Yes, Ma’am,” is what she settled on instead, quiet and unassuming. 

 

Karen beamed, then turned on her heel to patter down the steps and towards her '85 Chevrolet station wagon parked neatly against the curb, though not before throwing an enthusiastic (and JJ is seriously not kidding here) “Toodles!” over her shoulder along with a raucous giggle that made JJ’s skin crawl. 

 

“She’s… nice,” Mr. Hotchn— _Hotch_ , JJ corrected herself—intoned, his voice dry and almost… wry, though JJ was sure she was hearing things.

 

JJ nodded wordlessly, her gaze purposely downcast so as not to appear resistant towards the man's authority. 

 

“Come in,” Hotch said then, a gentle smile on his features as he moved to the side and gestured subtly for her to enter. 

 

Resisting the urge to show her nerves, she took a slow deep before flashing Hotch a placid smile and carefully approaching the doorway. 

 

_Here goes nothing_.

 

— — 

 

Five minutes later, the man named Hotch showed her to a modest cream-colored bedroom (one of five she could see in the hall) on the second floor with two twin beds and standard-looking rectangular wooden desks on either side, presumably where she would be staying until she aged out of the system. 

 

One side of the room was clearly well lived-in, if the various technicolored doodads sitting atop one desk and the bright pink Herschel messenger bag sprawled haphazardly upon the nicked hardwood flooring was anything to go by. 

 

“This will be your new room, Jennifer,” he informed her quietly ( _JJ_ , she corrected mentally), keeping a surprisingly respectful distance between the two of them all the while. 

 

(Again, JJ reminded herself not to get her hopes up that this man might be decent, after all—it was about a hundred times more likely that the polar opposite was true.) 

 

“Your roommate will be a girl your age, Penelope—though she likes to go by Garcia. Is there anything I can get you while you get settled in?”

 

JJ gripped the straps of her backpack even tighter, apprehensive knots forming in her stomach. 

 

“No, I’m okay. Thank you,” she mumbled, purposefully avoiding eye contact with the intense man. 

 

If it bothered him at all, Hotch certainly didn’t show it. “Okay. Dinner is at 5:30, so you have about an hour and a half to get unpacked.”

 

Dazedly, JJ nodded, silently observing her… _colorful_ roommate’s rather bright stylistic design: a coffee mug upon the desk emblazoned with the words ‘World’s Cutest Babygirl’ in pink sparkly block letters, which held an abundance of glittery pens and pencils topped with multicolored frill; a cutesy pink PowerPuff Girls alarm clock on the nightstand that looked like it’d come from Target; and perhaps most confusing, a matte-black poster embellished with a bold Satanic star on the walls just above the bed. 

 

She barely registered the sound of Hotch’s footsteps retreating down the hall and subsequently descending the staircase, walking in a zombie-like fashion to the plain empty bed across from her roommate’s with navy blue sheets tucked securely into the mattress, almost military-like in its neatness. 

 

(JJ suspected that that scrupulous tidiness was probably Hotch’s doing—the overtly solemn man looked like he hadn’t loosened up since the late 60’s.) 

 

Sighing to herself, she dropped her book bag carelessly to the floor then plopped herself down on the bed, noting briefly to herself that as halfway-house accommodations go, this didn’t look to be too shabby—far from it, really. 

 

She sat there for a while in the golden afternoon sunlight just fiddling with the straps of her bag, biting her bottom lip _hard_ as everything she’d been trying to avoid came rushing back into her mind like an untapped flood of half-forgotten slights and terrifying moments and downright painful remembrances: her whiskey-drunk father yelling slurs and provocation while she cowered in fear, the rough hands of Dale (employed by JJ’s father since as long as she can reasonably recall to work on the farm) on her bare skin who stank of cigarettes and beer, the nightmare-inducing image of 17-year-old Rosaline lying lifeless in the tub, blood everywhere and the 11-year-old JJ who found her there… Quite suddenly, she felt her eyes begin to burn hotly with overwhelmed tears, her body trembling atop the bedspread—

 

“You okay?” came a hesitant voice from the doorway, and JJ whipped around to see—

 

_Wow, she's pretty_ , JJ thought.

 

The ‘she’ in question was a tall pale girl with a willowy frame and jet-black hair that ended just beneath her shoulders, dressed in cargo pants (her belt buckle curiously off-center) and a grey V-neck tee, combat boots laced tightly on either foot, and her eyes… a _beautiful_ shade of brown—like chocolate, or mahogany; she was _stunning_.

 

“I-I—Yeah,” JJ managed, letting out an amused huff of air and shaking her head ruefully at herself. “Fine. Just… taking it all in, I guess.”

 

The girl tilted her head and narrowed her eyes, like she didn’t quite believe that—JJ resisted the urge to squirm on the bedspread as the beautiful girl entered the room, then casually flopped herself down onto the bed opposite (the one with light-pink sheets and an adorable stuffed teddy bear against the headboard), feet spread, elbows on her knees, hands clasped together as she leaned comfortably forward.

 

“Well, if you ever change your mind about that… I’m here,” she offered, her voice deep and rich and _Christ_ , JJ _really_ needed to get it together. 

 

“Thanks,” she mumbled quietly, fiddling anxiously with her hands whilst eyeing the girl with a thoughtful look. “I’m assuming you aren’t Garcia?”

 

Immediately, the breathtaking girl smiled to reveal straight white teeth, chuckling dryly to herself—the sound of it made JJ’s heart skip a beat. 

 

“No, no… “ the gorgeous brunette trailed off, still grinning widely. “She’s rather colorful, isn’t she?”

 

JJ simply nodded, still not quite—

 

“Oh! I’m Emily.”

 

_Fitting_ , she thought. _A beautiful name for a beautiful girl, and all that_.

 

“I’m JJ,” she introduced herself, struggling against the powerful urge to lose herself in the coffee-bean-brown of Emily’s soft twinkling irises. “How long have you been here?”

 

Emily bit her lower lip, face scrunched in thoughtful concentration—it was adorable. “It’ll be… 6 months next Tuesday, I do believe.”

 

JJ let out a low whistle through her teeth (something Dale had taught her back on the farm). “Long time.”

 

Emily shrugged. “Better than the alternatives.”

 

“True,” JJ acquiesced. “Who else lives here?”

 

“So, Morgan’s my roommate; Garcia’s yours, obviously; and there’s Reid down the hall—he gets his own room cause he loses the plot sometimes… he’s the smartest kid you’ll ever meet, though, and probably the cutest,” Emily mused, punctuating the sentence with a good-natured snort that had JJ chuckling along before she could really think better of it. “Next to him, Kevin is roomed with the new guy, Luke, who just got here a little while back. But I guess you’re the new guy now, huh?”

 

Anxiety curled in JJ’s chest. “Yeah,” she agreed, then forced a laugh. “Guess so.”

 

Instantly, Emily’s smile dropped, her face growing more solemn as she observed JJ thoughtfully with those gorgeous brown eyes—clearly, JJ hadn’t done as well as she’d thought to hide her misgivings. 

 

“Hey, don’t stress about it,” she encouraged, leaning almost imperceptibly forward. “You’re not alone, yeah? You have me.”

 

A smile quirked at JJ’s lips, warmth fluttering in her chest. “Is that so?”

 

A rosy blush spread across Emily’s pale angular cheeks as she ducked her head bashfully; JJ reveled in the sight of it. 

 

“Yeah,” Emily managed to murmur eventually, shyly darting her gaze back up to meet JJ’s. “I think we’re gonna be close.”

 

JJ was smiling now, wide and unrestrained, as she replied, “Yeah. I think so, too.”

 

Emily’s blush deepened, and JJ giggled.

 

Maybe this place wouldn’t be so bad after all.

 

— — 

 

At 5:21pm, JJ met her roommate: a round bubbly girl with dyed-blonde hair (darker roots peeking out at her scalp), dark brown eyes (visible through pointy magenta-colored horn-rimmed glasses) wearing a bright pink dress and black high-top Converse on either foot. 

 

“Greetings, roomie!” she chirped, forcibly dragging a dark-skinned and _very_ well-toned boy in a V-neck tee and jeans behind her—he had a very intense look on his features, with strong dark brows and a no-nonsense buzzcut that made his black hair look like a shadow on his scalp. “I’m Garcia! This is Morgan, my dreamy chocolate Adonis.”

 

JJ quirked a brow, willing the flurry of nerves in her stomach to abate. “I see.”

 

The chocolate Adonis in question rolled his eyes, a reluctant but blinding smile creeping its way across his features. “Cool it, baby girl… you’re scaring her,” he chastised teasingly with a chuckle before turning his attentions to JJ, more or less ignoring Garcia’s indignant huffs beside him. “What’s up?” 

 

JJ smirked. “Not much. I’m JJ, by the way.”

 

Morgan nodded, dark eyes sparkling with something like sincerity. (JJ wasn’t sure she trusted it.) “Nice to meet you, JJ.”

 

“Likewise.”

 

“Okay, enough chit-chat,” Garcia announced with determination, brown-eyed gaze narrowing intently at JJ, who was still sitting comfortably on the edge of her mattress, grey book bag resting at her feet. “Do Satanic rituals offend you?”

 

JJ blinked. “Um… no?”

 

“Lovely. What about animal cruelty?”

 

“Uh… I don’t like it?”

 

Garcia crossed her arms indignantly, the very picture of disapproval even as Morgan flashed JJ an empathetic look over Garcia's shoulder. “Are you asking me or are you telling me?” 

 

JJ gulped. “Telling you. Definitely.”

 

“Uh-huh,” Garcia intoned solemnly, her features wrought with palpable suspicion. “Lastly: shower sex.”

 

“Ew,” JJ found herself replying before she could think, her features scrunched with clear dislike. “Definitely not. Seriously, at one point or another, a girl’s just gotta—“

 

“Wash her own hair!” “Wash her own hair!” Garcia and JJ finished in unison, a charged sort of energy between them as Garcia eyed JJ up and down with a sort of newfound respect. 

 

A second later, Garcia squealed, “Morgan, I _like_ this girl!”

 

“I see that, mama,” Morgan replied, amusement evident in his tone. “Welcome to the team.”

 

JJ raised her brows. “‘Team’?"

 

Morgan shrugged. “We stick together, I guess—we’re close. More so than in most of the group homes I’ve been in.”

 

“And he’s been through a lot of them,” Garcia added, stroking at the boy’s well-defined arm. “I love your arms,” she informed him dreamily, as something of an afterthought. 

 

Morgan chuckled. “Thanks, baby girl.” Then he turned to JJ, who had her lips pursed tightly in a desperate attempt not to laugh at the sight of them. “Ready for dinner? It’s Taco Tuesday.”

 

JJ smirked, something inexplicable warming in her chest at the prospect of ’Taco Tuesday’ with kids like her, kids who didn’t have a home anymore but were trying every day despite it all to find one all their own. “Absolutely.”

 

— —

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> i really like this pairing ugH


	2. taco tuesday

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> JJ meets the rest of the kids at Taco Tuesday dinner!
> 
> Also, Hotch really doesn't get paid enough for this job.

Nerves fluttered incessantly in JJ’s ribcage as she cautiously took a seat at the table between Emily and Garcia across from an abnormally thin and pale-looking boy with floppy light brown hair and adorably wide hazel eyes. He was dressed in a plaid short-sleeved button down that seemed to swallow his bony frame, his face sallow and cheekbones unusually pronounced; JJ couldn’t decide if he looked more like a model from Vogue or merely a decisively underweight boy desperately in need of a more sufficient diet. 

 

(Though, really, weren’t the two all too often one and the same?)

 

The Vogue model boy in question sat in between Morgan and a broad-shouldered Latino boy with short curly hair moussed to perfection. Adjacent to him at one head of the table sat an impeccably put-together Hotch sporting a meticulously-pressed white button down, and at the other, a round-faced boy with dark tinted squareish-shaped glasses wearing a gothic-looking T-shirt and smiling a wide goofy smile that immediately put JJ more at ease. 

 

“Children, this is Jennifer,” Hotch announced formally to the group once they’d all settled in their respective seats, after which JJ found herself fighting the reflexive urge to correct him. 

 

Luckily (or unluckily), a troubled-looking Emily saw fit to do it for her, gently nudging at JJ’s shoulder with her own and countered, “I thought your name was JJ.”

 

JJ flushed, feeling the weight of everyone’s stare suddenly upon her as they all turned to look. “My full name is Jennifer, but I like to go by JJ,” she explained bashfully, far too timid to chance a glance towards Hotch—she wasn’t sure how the man would react to the most recent revelation. 

 

But Hotch didn’t comment on it, just gently acquiesced, “My mistake,” in an easy tone, before continuing on: “And I expect you all to be welcoming and cordial towards her while she gets settled in. Understood?”

 

“Understood,” the other kids chorused back like it was routine, and idly, JJ surmised, it probably was. 

 

“Good,” Hotch announced decisively, his dark brown eyes sweeping over the table in a rather intense fashion, one that had JJ resisting the urge to squirm uncomfortably in her seat. “JJ, do you normally say Grace?”

 

“Who’s that?” Garcia asked without missing a single beat, causing Morgan to snicker quietly from across the table.

 

Hotch, for his part, ignored them both in favor of staring intently at JJ as he awaited a reply. 

 

“Um—Well, my parents used to, I guess… “ JJ trailed off unsurely, feeling her cheeks burn under the heat of everyone’s stare.

 

Hotch just nodded. “Would you like us to say Grace before eating?”

 

“Uh… no?” JJ managed, still rather taken aback by Hotch’s line of questioning. 

 

Again, Hotch nodded curtly with a seemingly kind and respectful look in eyes of chocolate brown, as if she’d just said something particularly enlightening. 

 

“He always asks the new kids if they’re religious,” Garcia offered from her left, a comforting grin on her cute features. “‘Cause he’s considerate like that.”

 

JJ nodded blankly. “Right,” she mumbled, fidgeting with her hands in her lap. "Thanks.”

 

Hotch didn’t reply to that, just moved swiftly on, and really, it just served to make it that much harder for JJ to figure the man out (a problem she very rarely had): “Okay, should we go around and introduce ourselves?”

 

After a moment of silence, Morgan nodded, evidently in a well-meaning effort to make up for the rest of the kids’ lacking response. “Sure.”

 

The round boy with glasses and the gothic tee near instantaneously took Morgan’s cue and conceded a cheerful nod, while Garcia hummed mildly in agreement, flashing Hotch a small smile. 

 

“Okay, we’ll say names, ages, how long you’ve been here, and a fun fact about you,” Hotch asserted, seemingly undeterred by the less-than-enthused energy around the table. “Luke?” he asked, turning towards the curly-haired Latino boy to his left. 

 

“Hi, I’m Luke,” the boy introduced confidently after a second, flashing a charming white-toothed grin to JJ that showed his dimples on either cheek. “I’m 16, I’ve been here for a week, and I have the cutest lil' baby in the world. Her name’s Roxxy.” 

 

At that, Morgan snorted loudly. “Alvez, we’ve been over this—you can’t be callin’ her your ‘baby’ if she’s a dog.”

 

“Wait your turn, chocolate thunder,” Luke quipped back, his tone easy and good-natured; JJ bit her lip in an effort not to smile. 

 

Morgan rolled his eyes but complied, already turning to eye the skeletal-thin boy between himself and Luke with kind eyes and barely-concealed affection upon his angular features. 

 

“Spencer?” Hotch prompted after a second, causing the boy in question, “Spencer," to jolt abruptly to attention in his seat. 

 

Instantly, Morgan placed a hand on the back of the boy’s chair (though he remained careful not to touch him without permission), then began muttering something to him that sounded like “Hey, Boy Wonder, you good?” but JJ couldn’t be sure. 

 

To her surprise, everyone else just waited patiently for the sudden obstacle to resolve itself, the only sound in the room Morgan’s rumbling murmurs and the occasional faint response from the brunette boy. 

 

After a spell, Morgan was rubbing soothing circles into the boy’s back, and he was lifting his chin to talk, a heart-wrenchingly tentative look in his wide coffee-bean-colored eyes. “I-I’m Spencer Reid, I’m 15, I’ve been here since Obama’s presidency,” _Interesting_ , JJ thought, mentally doing the math from 2008 to now—that meant Spencer had been there for six _years_ , which sounded just shy of ridiculous, “and a fun fact is that the longest word you can spell on a keyboard using only the top row of letters is ‘typewriter.’”

 

The table was quiet for a brief moment—then, Garcia squealed with delight, successfully breaking the sudden silence. “Oh my God, you’re _right_ —well, of course you’re right you’re _always_ right I—"

 

“Calm down, mama,” Morgan reminded her gently, flashing her a bemused smirk before turning back to Spencer, who had just begun a rather intense staring match with the wooden table. “Reid, bud—that wasn’t a fun fact about _you_.”

 

At that, Spencer shrugged noncommittally, his gaze still firmly downcast. 

 

Morgan looked slightly worried, but he let it go—Hotch, too. A second later, the solemn man was gesturing for Morgan to go next, the dark-skinned boy instantly furrowing a single well-shaped brow in thought (though his well-defined arm didn’t stray from the back of Spencer’s chair). 

 

“I’m Morgan, I’m 17, I’ve been here for just over a year, and I’m originally from Chicago,” he spoke, his words even and measured, dark eyes shifting from Hotch to Garcia to Reid and back again. 

 

“Thanks,” Hotch said quietly, then turned to nod at the jovial-looking and bespectacled boy at the opposite end of the table. “Kevin?”

 

The boy, “Kevin," grinned immediately, wide and goofy and comforting somehow, even as JJ knew very well not to place her trust so blindly in such a superficial trait. 

 

“Hullo,” he intoned nervously, his soulful brown eyes darting this way and that behind tinted glasses, like he couldn’t quite decide where to look. “I’m Kevin, I’m 16, I’ve been here for,” he paused, screwing up his boyish features in adorable concentration as he thought about it, "three months, and I hacked the Pentagon one time with a $200 laptop, so that was cool.”

 

Hotch heaved a quiet sigh at that even as JJ’s jaw dropped, because, He did _what?_

 

Then Garcia was letting out a huff of discontented air, crossing her arms petulantly across her chest and pouting at the boy. “Hey, you stole mine!” 

 

JJ’s jaw dropped even further—truthfully, it was beginning to ache somewhat, but she really didn’t have it in her to care because, again, They did _what?!_

 

“An appropriate fact, please, Kevin,” Hotch insisted tiredly, his low gravelly voice monotoned and devoid of emotion; overall, he looked remarkably well-composed for a man who just witnessed one of the kids whose care he’d been charged with confessing entirely unprompted to a federal felony.

 

Kevin blew out a long exasperated breath as if he’d been expecting that response; meanwhile, JJ’s confusion climbed to reach staggering heights. “Okay, I have a different one—I like Metallica.” 

 

Instantly, JJ brightened in her seat, her confusion more or less forgotten for the moment as she leaned over to catch Kevin’s eye. “Me, too.”

 

“You ever seen them in concert?” Kevin asked then, his eyes alight with visible excitement. 

 

“No, I never have actually! That—"

 

“Wonderful,” Hotch interjected sharply, his curt response causing both Kevin and JJ’s cheeks to flush with embarrassment; though, as it was, the man barely spared the two of them a glance before turning his serious gaze upon Emily. “Emily?”

 

“Uh, okay,” Emily began, sounding nervous—but all JJ could focus on was her eyes, and each delicate curve of her angular profile; needless to say, she had to employ a not insignificant amount of willpower to understand what the breathtaking girl was saying. “I’m Emily, I’m 17, I’ve been here for almost 6 months, and I really like cooking,” she finished, looking almost bashful at that—JJ thought it might just have been the cutest thing she’d ever witnessed. 

 

Hotch gestured for JJ to go next. 

 

She took a deep breath before speaking, distinctly uncomfortable under the intense scrutiny of everyone’s gaze even as she knew it was harmless, that _they_ were harmless—well, except for Hotch. She wasn’t sure about him yet.

 

“I’m JJ, I’m 17, I just got here, obviously, and um… " she paused, thinking. “I’m a big Redskins fan.”

 

Morgan broke into a large blindingly-white grin. “Football, huh?”

 

She nodded shyly, hyperaware of Emily’s scent beside her, something like vanilla bean mixed sparingly with… cinnamon? She wasn’t sure. 

 

“Do you play?” Morgan asked, apparently intrigued.

 

JJ shrugged, thinking of the times she’d throw around the ball with Rosaline and their younger brother in the fields, a sharp ache penetrating her chest at the bitter remembrance. “Sometimes.”

 

Morgan’s toothy smile widened. “Oh, _hell_ yes—"

 

“Morgan,” Hotch interjected, a warning in his flat tone. 

 

“Sorry, Hotch,” Morgan apologized, his tone flippant and casual before he was turning back to JJ with a rueful grin. “We should go out back sometime, throw the ol’ pigskin around, yeah?”

 

JJ nodded shyly again even as a sound of strangled protest escaped Garcia’s throat. 

 

“Derek Morgan, I swear to _God_ —"

 

“Hey, chill, baby girl,” he soothed easily, dark eyes dancing with amusement as they came to hover upon the girl in question. “You’re still my number one—you know that.”

 

A light flush spread across Garcia’s cheeks and she leaned back in her seat, looking distinctly pleased with herself. “Flatterer.”

 

Morgan shot her a charming wink. “You love it.”

 

Garcia bit her lip, her brown-eyed gaze turning heated. “Oh, honey, you _know_ I do—"

 

“Okay!” Hotch interrupted in a stern voice, though he didn’t devolve into a long-winded lecture on the inappropriateness of the dinner conversation thus far like JJ expected; instead, he just turned to Garcia with a tired but determined expression on his aged features. “Garcia?”

 

Garcia grinned, catlike and almost sinister. “Hell-o!” she chirped in a sing-song voice. “I am Penelope, but you can call me Garcia, I’m 17, and I’ve been here for a year and… a half? I think? Is that right, Hotch?” she asked, turning to face the stony-faced man. 

 

After a moment, he nodded, the movement slow and deliberate. “Yes, Garcia, I believe that’s correct.”

 

“You’re the man!” Garcia squealed, pointing finger-guns at him. 

 

Hotch simply glared-slash-stared in response, and Morgan coughed loudly from the across the table in an undoubtedly poor attempt at hiding his amusement—JJ, for her part, swallowed down a giggle, biting her lip _hard_ to keep from smiling.

 

“Okay, anyways,” Garcia turned to face the rest of the table and continued without a care, like she hadn’t just endured an epic stare down with the male version of a scarier Medusa and miraculously lived to tell the tale. “A fun fact about me is… " she trailed off, pouting at an unsympathetic Hotch. “Well, _all_ of them are fun. Do I have to pick just one?”

 

Hotch just glowered. 

 

“Just one it is, then,” Garcia concluded cheerfully, unperturbedly changing gears with startling speed. “So, my fun fact is… I’m a super huge tech whiz. You are looking at the All-Knowing Oracle of Quantico, Virginia, people!” She spread her hands emphatically, looking by all accounts ready to implode from excitement at any given moment.

 

JJ sucked her lips in to hide her amusement, though when she looked around the table, she noticed that no one seemed all that surprised by Garcia’s spunky introduction—that was just to be expected from an excitable girl like Garcia, JJ supposed. 

 

Hotch, too, just looked slightly exhausted but otherwise undeterred as he shot her a sharp nod, then announced, “Alright. Shall we eat?”

 

Kevin nodded enthusiastically and Garcia squealed in her seat, while Morgan rubbed his hands together animatedly, an apprehensive grin on his charming features. 

 

“Definitely,” Luke inputted, and JJ saw Emily nod along with that beside her.

 

And, _Shit_ , JJ thought as Hotch began to pass out soft and hard shell tacos and Morgan scarfed one down in record time before turning to challenge Luke to a spirited taco-eating contest while Hotch watched on with poorly-concealed resignation and Garcia cheered loudly from her seat. _This is starting to feel suspiciously like a place to call home_. 

 

— —

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> ugh i love their dynamic


	3. something better

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> JJ has a nightmare. Garcia and Emily are there.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> just had this idea come to me, so this update it quicker than most of them will be... hope you like :)

JJ went to sleep that night around midnight—lights out had come at 9:30pm on the dot (this ‘Hotch’ guy was seriously punctual), but she’d tossed and turned in her bed long after Garcia’s cute mewling snores began to fill the room, entirely unable to do anything but lie wide-eyed and panicked in a mess of sheets, thinking non-stop about Dale and Ros and _home_. 

 

At some point, she (finally) must’ve given into her exhaustion, allowing her eyes to slide shut and sleep to overtake her—her biggest mistake yet, unfortunately. 

 

(Looking back on it, she really should’ve known better.)

 

She’d only just fallen under the blissful spell of sleep, her head light and eyelids heavy, thoughts overrun with hard-shell tacos and football and Karen’s too-wide lipstick-red smile—and, there she was. 

 

7-year-old JJ bursting into the bathroom, blue eyes wide and curious as she searched for her big sister Rosaline—and she found her, sprawled haphazardly in the bathtub, wrists slit vertically on either limb, bloody razor on the tile, the tub full of water (tainted a curious pinkish color for a reason JJ wouldn’t understand until years after she’d seen it). The whole time, JJ stood frozen in place, entirely unable to reconcile the memory of her affectionate big sister (she’d seen her just that _morning_ , for Christ's sake) with the image of her deathly pale body lying lifeless in the bloodstained water.

 

She’d never screamed so loud in her entire life. 

 

Then the bathroom was falling away, Ros’s corpse fading into nothingness… and she saw Dale, his big burly arms and calloused palms, the yellowy grin he’d flash her with noticeably crooked teeth, the coldness that flashed in his icy-blue eyes every time she tried to tell him 'no.’ 

 

She saw a darkened shed, the stench of cigarette smoke and his musty cologne permeating her nostrils, felt his beefy hands gripping tightly at her waist, stroking across the naked skin there in a way that made her shiver. It was as if she could _feel_ his bad intent, taste the coppery despair on her tongue—like she knew what was about to happen, knew how goddamned much it was going to hurt, knew that she was powerless to stop it. 

 

(That was always the worst part.)

 

She inhaled to quell the nausea roiling in her gut, inhaled the pungent scent of cigarettes and Old Spice and chewing tobacco in some futile attempt to keep from panicking—then his hands were slipping into the waistband of her jean shorts, yanking at her panties, screams escaping her as he growled sharply for her to keep quiet, _“or else.”_

 

She felt herself falling then, felt the pitch-black walls of the run-down shed falling into nothingness even as Dale’s hands followed her, crawling at her skin and trapping her against his hairy chest, sworn threats and half-drunk profanities on his acrid breath. And still, she fell, further than she’d ever fallen before, screaming for it to stop as his chilling laugh rang mockingly in her ears, as her breaths grew shorts and her shrieks died out and—

 

“JJ!” a voice whispered urgently, and she awoke abruptly in the night, scrabbling desperately for purchase upon her sheets, sweet drenching her pajamas as she gasped for air, for a single breath of oxygen that might keep her from falling victim to the unrelenting waves of grief and trauma threatening to drag her under—she didn’t get it. 

 

“JJ!” the voice whispered again, and immediately her head snapped to the darkened figure crouched at the side of her bed, a round-faced blonde with frantic brown eyes and worry etched all across her cutesy features, barely visible in the shadows cast by the scant moonlight streaming through the window— _Garcia_ , her brain told her, even as the all-consuming fear continued to well in her chest, leaving her wheezing for breath in its wake.

 

JJ grasped at her chest, feeling her heart about to beat itself straight out of her ribcage, attempting to center herself as the blackness seeped slowly from her vision and Garcia’s concern-ridden expression became clearer by the second. “G-Garcia?” she choked out eventually, then flinched violently when the girl moved to extend a comforting hand out for her. 

 

Garcia withdrew, looking hurt; instantly, JJ chastised herself for being so _fucking_ damaged even as she knew damn well she was nowhere near coherent enough to take it back. 

 

“You were having a nightmare,” Garcia told her gently, eyes wide behind slightly crooked horn-rimmed glasses, residual hurt glimmering in her gaze.

 

JJ took a deep breath, steeling herself, wiping at the cold droplets of sweat gathered at her forehead with shaking hands. 

 

“I’m fine,” she managed, though her voice trembled something awful and it only caused the worried crease between Garcia’s impeccably-shaped brows to worsen. 

 

“Hey,” came a whispered voice from the doorway, and instantly both girls whirled around to see—Emily, clad in all-black pajama pants and a navy blue tee emblazoned with the ‘FBI’ acronym and logo in yellow, her distressed features only just visible in the scant moonlight. 

 

JJ hated the relief she felt curling in her chest at the sight of her. 

 

“Emily,” she gasped out, unable to say anything more. 

 

Emily didn’t reply to that, just inched carefully forward, shadows falling over her face. “I heard screaming.”

 

Instantly, JJ flushed a deep red (well, deeper red than before, at least), feeling inexplicably scrutinized under the girl’s intent stare. 

 

“I-I’m okay,” she assured her, rolling her eyes when Garcia snorted at her side. 

 

“I’ll be right back, okay?” Garcia said then after a brief moment of quiet, brows stitched together in worry as she stood—it looked rather out-of-place against her bright-pink pajama bottoms and Hello Kitty T-shirt, JJ thought. “I’m gonna go get you some warm milk. It always helps Morgan after the bad ones.”

 

JJ shook her head weakly. “Garcia, you don’t—"

 

“But I’m going to, okay, hon?” she interrupted, a determined look on her features, and Emily shot JJ a look from behind her that practically screamed, _“Don’t bother.”_ JJ didn’t. “You’re not alone anymore.”

 

JJ felt as if her heart was breaking (or perhaps finally mending, though it’s not as if she’d know the fucking difference) in her chest when Garcia said that, even more so when the girl spun promptly on her heel to leave (presumably in search of the kitchen)—it didn’t get any better as Emily approached with slow strides, unmitigated _empathy_ shining in her eyes that made JJ want to throw something. 

 

“Wanna talk about it?” she asked, and almost instantly, JJ shook her head vehemently, because _No, definitely not_. “Okay,” she acquiesced easily, and JJ felt like crying at how _simple_ this was—how JJ said no, and Emily stopped. (She’d never gotten that with Dale.) “Can I sit with you?”

 

JJ blinked for a moment, then found herself nodding before she could really think better of it, something warming in her chest as Emily smiled in the darkness then came to position herself just a foot away from JJ on the mattress, backs leaned against the cool plaster of the wall behind them. 

 

They sat in comparable silence for a spell, nothing but the sound of the ceiling fan overhead and Garcia’s distant bustling in the kitchen filtering through the darkened room. 

 

“Sorry for waking you,” JJ mumbled eventually, her cheeks red, tone still hoarse from screaming. 

 

Without hesitation, Emily shook her head, something like sincerity glinting in her eyes. “Don’t be sorry, okay? We all have problems.”

 

“But I shouldn’t be dragging anyone else into mine.”

 

Emily pursed her lips. “That’s not how this works.”

 

JJ frowned, exhaustion making her dizzy as the adrenaline abated. “Not how what works?”

 

“Being friends.”

 

JJ cocked a brow, eyeing her with something like wry consternation. “You're sure you still wanna be friends with me?”

 

Emily’s lips twitched. “Why wouldn’t I?”

 

“I scream in my sleep.”

 

“So does Morgan."

 

JJ just hummed at that, allowing her lids to flutter shut as her brain attempted to work through what she was being told—it wasn’t easy. (It never really was.)

 

“So you don’t care?”

 

Emily scoffed at that, though there was no malice behind it. “The opposite, actually.”

 

JJ made a noncommittal noise. “That’s… nice of you.”

 

“Not really. I know what I signed up for.”

 

“You sure about that?”

 

Emily chuckled, shaking her head. “I never am.”

 

“Cheers,” JJ grumbled, a playful edge to her tone. “That’s very helpful.”

 

Emily’s grin widened, a knowing look in her eye. “It’s honest, though, hm?”

 

“Yeah,” JJ mused, falling helplessly into chocolatey-brown irises. “Yeah, it is.”

 

She felt inexplicably startled when Garcia came shuffling in then, her roommate humming an upbeat tune that had Emily’s nose wrinkling cutely while she proudly held out the mug (emblazoned with the words “World’s #1 Dad” in blocky blue-and-yellow font) filled with steaming milk to a stunned JJ. 

 

“You… For me?” she choked out, suddenly feeling a bit like a deer in the headlights in the face of such… such unsolicited _kindness_. 

 

Garcia just rolled her eyes in a _“Duh”_ gesture, though there was something kinder behind it—something like honest friendship. “I said I would, Jayje, didn’t I?” JJ opened her mouth to respond, but was quickly cut off by a string of incessant babbling: " _Oh!_ Oh, crap. Can I call you Jayje? I’m so sorry it really just kind of slipped out and I just thought it’d be cute but I can _totally_ —”

 

“Garcia,” JJ chided gently, a smile quirking at her lips. “It’s fine. I like it, actually.”

 

Garcia narrowed her gaze, though there was an undoubtedly hopeful glint in her eye. “Really?” she questioned suspiciously. “You promise you're not just saying that?”

 

JJ giggled at that, taking the steaming mug gracefully from Garcia’s grip. “I promise.”

 

Garcia beamed. “Okay.”

 

“What time is it?” she asked after a moment, sipping methodically at the warm sweet liquid and relishing in the comfort it brought her.

 

“3:02am,” Emily replied after a quick glance at the blocky watch on her wrist. 

 

JJ bit her lip, muttering, “Shit.”

 

“Don’t apologize again,” Emily told her, a good-natured warning in her tone. 

 

Garcia nodded profusely. “No apologies, newbie. We’re your friends now.”

 

At that, JJ grinned, eyes darting shyly between the both of them in the relative darkness. “Yeah?”

 

“Duh,” Garcia huffed, rolling her eyes. 

 

JJ shot her a smirk, then turned to Emily. 

 

“Yeah,” the girl agreed, alluring brown eyes filled with a sort of sincerity that made JJ’s heart clench painfully despite herself—but really, JJ thought as they made quiet jokes and giggled and told crazy stories throughout the night (or early morning, really), maybe these connections weren’t bad.

 

Maybe they were just the opposite, in fact.

 

Maybe they were the start to something better.

 

— — 

 

At exactly 7:00am, there came a sharp rap on the door. 

 

“Get up. You have thirty minutes,” Hotch’s voice filtered into the room, uncompromising and stern.

 

JJ groaned grouchily and rubbed drowsily at her bleary eyes, feeling somewhat vindicated as she heard Garcia let out an answering grunt of her own from across the room. 

 

“Thirty minutes until what?” JJ grumbled, her words muffled by the bedsheets beneath her. 

 

Garcia fisted her pillow (covered in a bright pink case to match her mattress sheets) with a discontented whine, mashing her head further into its plush depths. “Hmph?”

 

JJ sighed, yawning to clear her throat and shifting in the mess of blue sheets on her bed before curling further into the warmth her blankets provided. (Two steps forward, one step back.) “What does he mean ‘You have thirty minutes’?”

 

Garcia groaned again in response, smacking clumsily at her own forehead with an errant hand—JJ’s sure she might’ve laughed at that were it not so bloody _early_. “School.”

 

_Shit_ , JJ thought as she squinted against the rays of morning sunlight streaming generously into the room. She’d rather forgotten about school, honestly. “Lovely.”

 

Garcia turned onto her side then, cracking open a single eyelid, brows furrowed. “‘Lovely’?”

 

JJ didn’t reply as she sat herself up (though not without a loud groan for her efforts) in bed, scratching a hand through the mess of hair on her scalp and appraising a still-horizontal Garcia laid up across from her with a wry look. “Kidding.”

 

Garcia just huffed, turning further into her pillow. “Thas’ not funny.”

 

JJ giggled. “C’mon,” she urged as she slid off her mattress, undeterred by the incomprehensible grumble she got in response. “It’s my first day. You gotta show me around.”

 

The girl heaved a dramatic sigh, eyelids fluttering open to fix a now-standing JJ with a weary glare. “You’re lucky I like you.”

 

JJ rolled her eyes with a lopsided smirk stretched across her features, unwilling to betray the flood of genuine happiness that filled her chest at Garcia’s grumbled admission. “Yeah, yeah. Rise and shine, Sleeping Beauty—we don’t have all day.”

 

— —

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> i think i'm getting an idea as to where i want this story to go....


	4. dr. david rossi

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> JJ's first day of school... or, part of it, anyhow.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> had some inspiration for this, sooooo here's a new chapter!

School was… pretty much what JJ had expected, really. 

 

At least, so far. 

 

She was sitting in a class called “Theories of Justice” (which, _what?_ ), there was a boy in the corner with a mop of brown hair and icy blue eyes that kept staring at her, and as expected, she was entirely lost seated there without the faintest clue as to what anyone was even talking about. 

 

Not to mention, none of her housemates had this same class first block—not even the painfully shy Spencer Reid, whom JJ was rather nervous to hold a conversation with that spanned longer than it took to get through surface niceties. Point being: a familiar face would have been nice, to say the least.

 

And, it’s not that the class itself was poor, either—the polar opposite, in fact. 

 

The teacher was a very intelligent man, clearly—Dr. David Rossi, PhD.—but that only served to make things all that much worse, it seemed, because who was Rawls, what was a ‘Kant' (besides a _very_ derogatory term for the female gender as a whole used by misogynists and ignorant douchebags everywhere), and why was everyone’s boxers in such a twist over this made-up and undoubtedly pretentious term called the "categorical imperative"?

 

Predictably, the whole thing turned out to be a bit of a snooze-fest for JJ—not that it wasn’t interesting, of course (which it was), because JJ loved thinking through social justice issues and weaving through hints of political red tape around the edges… But really, what was she meant to do while people threw around words like "a priori" and "a posteriori" and dropped phrases like "the veil of ignorance" and "utilitarian naturalism," like JJ was supposed to have any _fucking_ idea what any of them were on about?

 

(The answer: slip blissfully into a coma.)

 

It wasn’t until the very end of class, when the bell had rung and Dr. Rossi was announcing their next lessons’ theme on "the morality of suicide," that JJ was brought crashing back down to reality—because they were going to do _what_ now?

 

But Dr. Rossi didn’t expand on that, just gave them a curt nod and sagely thanked them for coming to class today (as if they had any other choice) before turning back to his notepad (the page nearly full with lines of words in neat, flowing script) as they all filed out of the classroom, one after another. 

 

JJ was last (obviously), far too bashful to risk some awkward altercation at the door with a boy or girl she didn’t know—and just as she was about to leave, Dr. Rossi’s head poked up and the man was waving her over to his sleek wooden desk, the bulky square-ish golden ring on his finger glinting in the rays of sunlight that streamed in from the outside.

 

Unspeakably nervous, JJ gulped down her fear and approached with tentative (but steadfast) strides, careful not to hold eye contact with the man for any longer than strictly necessary. 

 

“It’s Jennifer, correct?” the man asked, a pleasant smile on his wrinkled face—he was in his 50's at least, with grey streaks in his hair and bearded mustache and a twinkle in his brown eyes that told JJ he was probably quite handsome once upon a time. 

 

JJ nodded, slow and deliberate, tentatively holding his steady eye contact. “I mostly go by JJ, Sir, but you can call me whatever you like.” 

 

Dr. Rossi nodded, stroking his beard contemplatively—he was quite well-dressed, JJ noticed, sporting a matte-black suit and white collared button-up shirt (sans the tie). “And is ‘JJ’ a nickname you like to be called?”

 

That threw her for a loop. “Um, I—What?”

 

He shrugged. “Sometimes people don’t like their nicknames, since they’re usually a title given to them by someone else. So, is ‘JJ’ what you would prefer to be called day-to-day in my classroom?”

 

JJ blinked. “Yes, Sir,” she told him slowly, wide blue eyes subtly searching him for any sign of misdirection, or maybe a trick. (She didn’t find any, though that just made her feel all the more on edge.)

 

“Okay. ‘JJ’ it is, then,” the man agreed easily, chocolate-brown eyes twinkling. (They reminded her of Emily, somehow—warm. _Safe_. She knew better than to trust that feeling.) “What’d you think of the class?”

 

“Th-This one?” JJ stammered out. _Idiot!_ her brain screamed. 

 

Dr. Rossi ducked his head and chuckled, as if she’d just told an especially funny joke. “Yes, JJ. This one.”

 

JJ felt her cheeks flush. “U-Um, I liked it!”

 

Dr. Rossi’s brows rose, as if taken aback; fear clenched painfully in JJ’s gut. “Really? It wasn’t confusing at all?”

 

“Well, yes, it was really confusing,” JJ admitted, fighting not to stumble over her words as the flush in her cheeks deepened under Dr. Rossi's calm, unrelenting gaze. “B-But I like what it centers around. You know, social justice issues and all… that.” _Stop talking, now!_ her brain pleaded.

 

Dr. Rossi nodded, looking simultaneously sympathetic and vaguely amused. “It must be hard coming in so late in the semester, hm?” JJ just nodded. “If you’d like, I could offer some crash courses on the things we’ve covered—you could just come in during the 15-minute breaks and catch up with me?”

 

JJ’s mind blanked. “Y-You’d do that? Sir?” she added the ‘Sir’ hastily, her brain still not quite caught up with what was happening. 

 

Dr. Rossi smiled gently at her, though it was almost sad, and there was a knowing and thoughtful look in his eye that had frenzied nerves twisting painfully in JJ’s stomach. “I’d be happy to.”

 

From there, JJ’s thoughts went straight from "A nice man is trying to help me for selfless reasons and I’m not sure what to do about it" to "A seemingly nice man wants me to come in regularly to his empty classroom so he can touch me just like Dale used to." (It was quite exhausting being JJ, needless to say—hyperactive trauma-induced paranoia was no joke.)

 

“I—Okay,” she choked out, not quite sure how to say “No," and rather unwilling to endure a heated scene right now if this man was like Dale, if he didn’t like being told “No," either. (The juncture of JJ’s thighs still ached with the memory of Dale’s final ‘parting gift’ to her.) “S-Sure.”

 

The man tilted his head curiously, and JJ felt her cheeks burn under his searching gaze. “Are you alright, JJ?”

 

“F-Fine!” JJ practically yelped, cheeks aflame. “F-Fine, I just—Can I go now? Sir? I just—I have to find my next class, ‘cause it’s my first day and everything, and I just—"

 

“Of course,” he acquiesced graciously, though there remained a slight furrow in his white-grey brow that JJ couldn’t quite discern. “I won’t keep you any longer.” She nodded, still blushing horribly, then turned to leave. “It was nice to meet you, JJ.”

 

She shivered in the doorway, freedom just a hair’s breath away. “You as well, Mr.— _Dr._ Rossi.”

 

Then she fled into the crowded halls, books clutched tightly to her chest, thoughts racing as she bumped shoulders with a billion chattering students she didn’t know. _Christ_.

 

It was going to be a long day.

 

— — 

 

“So, how was T-O-J?” Emily asked, having caught up with JJ during the first break where she'd deigned to sit under a beautiful Virginia pine tree out front—a wide grin upon her face, Emily took her seat on the lush grass straight across from a decidedly less cheery JJ, who sat leaning herself up against the tree with a thoughtful expression on her face. 

 

JJ furrowed her brows. “’T-O-what’?”

 

“Theories of Justice,” Emily explained, a slight flush coloring her high cheekbones—she looked positively radiant today, JJ noted (though she wasn’t sure why this fact surprised her) in dark-blue form-fitting jeans and a simple burgundy-red crew-neck tee, a plain gold chain with nothing on it adorning her neck… And, of course, those worn black combat boots from their first meeting, which JJ was beginning to suspect were a constant in Emily’s everyday wardrobe. 

 

“Ah,” JJ nodded in acknowledgement. “It was good.”

 

Emily’s gaze narrowed—though it was playful, non-threatening. (JJ liked that.) “Something about the way you said ‘good’ is telling me it was the opposite,” she points out kindly, quirking a brow. “So, did you not like Dr. Rossi?”

 

Instantly, JJ shook her head, forcing something like a reassuring smile onto her features. “No, of course I liked him… He’s… very kind.”

 

Emily’s grin widened somewhat at that, though a hint of concern still lingered in her eyes. “Then, what?”

 

“I’m… tired?”

 

“Try again.”

 

JJ pouted. “And here I was, thinking I excelled at lying.”

 

“Oh, you’re a good liar,” Emily assured her, brown eyes sparkling bemusedly. “I’m just good at reading people. It’s kind of my thing.”

 

JJ raised a brow. “Your ‘thing,’ huh?”

 

Emily flushed slightly, ducking her head. “Something like that,” she mumbled, rubbing ruefully at the back of her neck while JJ fought the sudden urge to drool at the muscles flexing beneath smooth pale skin in the cloud-obscured sunlight of late morning. “So, tell me—anyone give you a hard time? Someone I should beat up for you?”

 

JJ felt her cheeks flush at that, and she smiled genuinely at the sentiment. “N-No, that’s okay, Emily… Kind of you to offer, though.”

 

Emily shrugged, though she looked pleased with herself, dimples showing on either cheek. “So, then, do you just hate philosophy? Because, honestly, a lot of people do.”

 

JJ shook her head again, deciding to just put Emily (and herself, really) out of her (their) misery and find a suitably vague (but truthful) explanation to satisfy the other girl’s apparent curiosity: “It’s not that; it’s just… Dr. Rossi… he’s really, really nice. Like, _really_.”

 

Emily squinted her eyes. “Uh-huh.”

 

JJ giggled. “No, it’s just—" she halted herself, allowing her expression to turn more serious. “Is he… _always_ like that?”

 

Emily frowned slightly, full red lips pouting _adorably_ with confusion, and JJ found herself momentarily entranced. “Like what?”

 

“Like, um—" JJ coughed to gather herself, resisting the urge to squirm under Emily’s unwavering gaze. “You know, nice. Helpful. Offers to do things for you.”

 

A look of realization dawned on Emily’s features, a warm but almost sad look in her eye. “You think it’s too good to be true—that _he’s_ too good to be true.” It wasn’t a question. 

 

JJ bit her lip but nodded, suddenly feeling far too exposed under Emily’s scrupulous examination. “Is he?”

 

“No, Jayje,” Emily told her after a moment, a softness in her voice unlike anything JJ had ever heard. “No, he’s a good man.”

 

JJ felt her teeth dig further into her bottom lip of their own accord, suspicion rearing its ugly head in her gut. “How can you be so sure?”

 

“He, um… " Emily trailed off, her gaze distant. “He’s helped me, you know? He’s really close with Hotch, and Reid, too—and he’s been like a father to me since the start, even though I have no frame of reference for what a ‘father’ should be,” she laughed bitterly at that, like it was funny (even when it very clearly wasn’t); JJ’s heart clenched at that. “So, um, I don’t know if that changes things for you, at all. But, I—I trust him, okay?”

 

JJ took a moment to contemplate this, a sort of serenity settling upon her that was equal parts welcome and disturbing. “Okay,” she resolved finally, holding Emily’s beautiful brown-eyed gaze with her own. “Okay—if you trust him, then I do, too.”

 

Emily smiled in response, wide and genuine—it seemed to fix something in JJ’s chest she hadn’t known was broken in the first place. “Okay.”

 

— —

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> i love rossi he's such a dad


	5. p.e.

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> The rest of the school day is somewhat uneventful... until P.E. (though, to be fair, it's not as if JJ's hopes for that particular class were all that high to begin with).

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> new chapter!

The next few classes were something of a blur—Math, Chemistry, Digital Art. JJ had Morgan with her in Math, both Emily and Garcia with her in Chemistry, and Spencer and Luke in Digital Art. 

 

And really, it was all quite average (well, except for her interactions with Emily; she would place all of those unquestionably at above-average status): she chatted idly with Morgan about football in Math, exchanged teasing banter with Garcia in Chem, built a tentative friendship with Luke in Digital Art, and, to her mild disappointment, still got absolute radio silence from one Spencer Reid. 

 

Given, she’d only tried once, and the boy’s face had flushed such an impressive shade of crimson while he muttered unintelligibly about something undoubtedly smart but entirely un-followable (JJ was only human, after all); after that, she decided to give him some space—clearly, something about her was making the poor boy uncomfortable. 

 

Then came P.E. 

 

Which, first of all, JJ has a couple things to say about forcing large groups of nearly-of-age teens to engage in mandatory quote-on-quote "Physical Education," when really, it just ends up devolving into a half-assed game of dodgeball in which the dudebro jocks try to kill each other with lame insults and even lamer jokes, the nerds and outcasts sit in the very corner as far away from the action as humanly possible without being marked down on their grade by the lazy "coach" sitting on his sweaty ass watching the “education" occur, and all the non-social-outcast girls run around screaming at the top of their lungs like they’ve never seen a dodgeball before in their entire life. 

 

On top of that, everyone’s forced to wear what is quite possibly the ugliest outfit known to man—a grey cotton shirt (making sweat stains a very real concern) with the school’s logo emblazoned proudly across the front, and a pair of entirely reprehensible navy-blue basketball-esque shorts, each garment equipped with a painted-white strip upon which to write the wearer’s surname. 

 

JJ had to roll up her shorts three times (and still they reached well below mid-thigh), not to mention her T-shirt was small enough to fit more like a crop top than anything else—but she caught Emily watching her on at least three different occasions while changing in the locker rooms, so, she supposed, it wasn’t all for naught. 

 

But still, in JJ’s humble opinion, "P.E. class" was a heaping load of bullshit; as a result, her hopes for P.E. at Quantico High School weren’t all that great to begin with. But really, an all-out brawl ending with her and her housemates sitting just outside the Principal’s office waiting for a no-doubt extensive lecture on just how badly they’d fucked up? _Seriously?_

 

She might’ve started to expect things weren’t going to go well when a) she realized that everyone from the 12th grade was attending the same Gym class, b) the creepy mop-haired brunette from her Theories of Justice class earlier was still engaging in a completely one-sided staring contest with yours truly, and c), kids were assholes to smart younger kids like Spencer Reid because somehow, they thought that that juvenile idiocy was funny (or, at least, well-deserved)—which, it wasn't. Like, at all. 

 

But, either way, things all started out fairly drab—in other words, exactly how JJ had expected when she’d walked into the admittedly spacious gym that stunk of sweat and mold, its wooden floors polished but turning green around the edges, and the supposed “coach" (his name tag said “Foyet" and nothing else) didn’t spare any of them a single glance, just plopped down at his desk eating a greasy fast-food cheeseburger and telling “Jerry” (his name was Stephen), to go grab the balls and set up a game of dodgeball.

 

From there, it was… well, JJ thinks "organized chaos" might be far too generous a term. Pandemonium, possibly? 

 

The point is, it wasn’t pretty. 

 

As expected, all the non-outcast girls started screaming bloody murder about a second after the first spongey red ball was thrown—the jocks jumped on the balls lined up across the center line like men starved at a Thanksgiving feast (which, interestingly enough, didn’t include Morgan, who was instead buddied up at the back end of the courts with Reid having a murmured conversation with the shy boy), and the nerds (sans Spencer) all huddled up in the far right corner, some of them clutching DSi’s and stacks of Yu-Gi-Oh cards like their very lives depended on it.

 

Interestingly enough, though, there were a couple other groups JJ hadn’t quite accounted for—the goths and stoners were sprawled in a loose circle next to the nerds, some of them wide-eyed and looking like they were tripping absolute _balls_ , the others “sneakily" passing around what looked like a couple tabs of acid to follow their buddies straight into Hallucinogenic Trip Woodstock Central… Interestingly enough, though, some of them abstained, preferring to remain sober and watch the teenaged animals violently fling spongey balls at each other as if it actually meant something. 

 

There was another group, too—the kids who cared about grades, intermingled sparingly with a couple kids who looked to be… praying? JJ couldn’t be sure. They weren’t quite “nerds," because video games and Anime weren’t among their most sought-after interests, and they’d probably hear the term "AFK" and immediately run, thinking wholeheartedly that it was some kind of assault rifle… but they cared, and made it obvious, too, from their perfectly-gelled hair to their thoroughly-pressed P.E. T-shirts (which, why would you _iron_ a P.E. T-shirt?!) to the stacks of books they’d brought with them into the gym (as one does) for a friendly neighborhood game of dodgeball. 

 

Meanwhile, JJ and her housemates kind of… drifted. They were their own unit, really, though Garcia and Kevin geeked out with the Yu-Gi-Oh kids for a little while, and Morgan and Luke charmingly waved off the loud-mouth jocks trying to get their attention, and Emily seemed to have a friend or two within the grade-conscious-slash-prayer-circle group that she could chat with for at least a passing moment or two. 

 

But, still, they stuck together, even if they weren’t all on the same ‘side.’

 

JJ, Kevin, and Garcia were on one; and Morgan, Luke, Emily, and Spencer remained immovably on the other, each lingering close to one another, each ensuring no one was left alone for longer than a minute or so.

 

It was charming, almost—well, as charming as a sweaty, testosterone-heavy high school game of dodgeball can be, JJ supposed. And, then… well. 

 

It all started when some bulky guy with a blonde flat-top haircut and lurid green eyes came running to Morgan (who was still glued faithfully to a shaky-looking Spencer), pointing emphatically at some other jock on the other side and (presumably) begging Morgan to go get him out. 

 

At first, Morgan seemed to say no, shaking his head and clapping the boy on the back in that good-natured way of his, probably encouraging him to do it himself—but the guy didn’t let it go, sticking by Morgan and pointing at the other guy and pleading with him until, finally, Morgan rolled his eyes, catching a ball mid-air and stalking grumpily over to face his newly-acquired target on the far side of the courts. (Though, not before turning back to Spencer and sharing a word with him, probably about how he’d be right back once he eviscerated that stupid kid on the other team.)

 

While Morgan did that, Spencer tightly gripped himself and started muttering loudly and consistently enough that even JJ could sort of, _almost_ make out what he was saying (something math-related)—and obviously, because kids are assholes, that made him a prime target for some idiot jock to prance by calling him a "schizo freak," thereby inciting what looked to be a particularly nasty panic attack to descend swiftly upon the poor boy who promptly crumpled amidst all the screaming and pandemonium of the game. 

 

JJ’s not sure what made her do it—maybe it was the crestfallen look on Spencer’s face (one she herself had worn far too many times after Dale had had his fun with her), or maybe it was the goofy and entirely unapologetic grin on that idiot’s face, or maybe it had something to do with the fact that their "instructor," Coach Foyet, just kept eating his food in his seat like nothing of even mild importance had occurred, even when he’d been perfectly well within hearing range of the shouted insult… Either way, she snapped. 

 

Sooner than she could blink she was striding confidently over the center line, undeterred by a well-thrown ball that hit her squarely in the thigh along the way (she’d have a bruise there later, probably), then walking up to that brown-eyed brunette jock with that stupidly big self-satisfied grin stretched lazily across his features, and punching him right in the jaw.

 

(Idly, she read his shirt, which had the last name “PIERCE" messily etched in Sharpie upon the blank-white rectangles.)

 

Morgan returned with a vengeance right then, having (most likely) taken care of that one kid on the other team, taking a now-fallen Pierce by the shirt and yanking him back up to his feet, a terrifying fire in his dark eyes. 

 

“What did you say to my friend, hm?” he inquired lowly, threateningly, teeth gritted and jaw clenched, his face less than an inch from Pierce’s.

 

Pierce’s brown eyes widened and his jaw went slack—by all accounts, the boy looked to be just on the verge of pissing himself. “N-Nothing, man, I-I’m sorry, okay?” he sputtered out, his voice cracking horribly on every word—though whether that was due to the paralyzing fear or just the many gifts of enduring puberty, JJ couldn’t be sure. 

 

JJ just rolled her eyes and ran over to Spencer, who was curled up and trembling in a ball on the floor, mumbling nonsense to himself as he tried to work through his fears—it broke her heart. He wasn’t quite coherent enough to respond to her when she said, “Spencer, it’s me, JJ—we met yesterday, do you remember?” or when she asked, “Can I touch you, Spencer?” or even when she told him in no uncertain terms, “I’m going to touch you now, Spence, okay? You’re shivering.”

 

(She hadn’t meant for the nickname to come out, wasn’t quite sure where it’d come from in the first place—but, oh well. She could figure it out later, she thought.)

 

Moving slowly and deliberately, she wrapped the boy up in her arms, smiling to herself as he instinctively curled further into her body—then she whispered soft reassurances to him, stroking his floppy brown hair and telling him that he was safe, that he didn’t have to worry anymore, that he could breathe now, even whilst the heated yells of angry students raged on in the background. 

 

What happened next, JJ didn’t quite see—from what she could gather on the trip to the Principal’s office from the rest of the kids, some jocks started pushing Morgan around, and he turned and punched a couple of them; Luke got into it with them a second later, standing off with Morgan against a bunch of angry hormonal teenaged boys, a determined look on his boyish features. 

 

Then, Emily came in sweep-kicking people to the ground and grabbing their hands to apply pressure-points JJ didn’t even know existed, thereby taking out a good handful of screaming athletes in a matter of seconds… And, after that, Garcia and Kevin came in trying to reason with everyone, saying how this was “pointless" and “mean" and "not at all what our Lord and Savior Barack Obama would want for us” (Garcia’s words, obviously)—needless to say, Kevin got a punch to the face that snapped the square-shaped glasses resting upon the bridge of his wide-set nose for his troubles before Morgan and Luke could punch the offending party’s lights out.

 

And, eventually, Coach Foyet must’ve finished his cheeseburger and subsequently run out of swipes on Tinder, because, before anyone could get to breaking anyone’s bones (well, besides Kevin’s nose, at least), he was there with an ear-splittingly loud megaphone, calling for "Terminator, Blonde ’n Bubbly, César Chávez, Four Eyes, Wednesday Addams, Scrawny Albert Einstein, and Cinderella" to all make their way down to the Principal’s office “at once.”

 

Begrudgingly, they went. 

 

And, now? Well, now, here they were, sitting outside one Principal Strauss’s office, waiting to be called in for the reaming of the century. 

 

“'Blonde ’n Bubbly'?” Garcia huffed out crossly, not directing her question at anyone in particular. “What does that even _mean?_ “

 

Kevin shrugged wordlessly, still clutching a rather thick wad of crimson-stained paper towels tightly against his profusely bleeding nose. 

 

Morgan just eyed her tiredly up and down, angry reddened marks on both cheeks, before murmuring, “Take it as a compliment, baby. He means you’re upbeat and optimistic.”

 

“But, Coach Foyet hates us,” Garcia whined, crossing her arms petulantly against her chest. 

 

“Correction,” Luke interjected, who was bleeding from a split lip and rubbing a splotchy red impact mark on his jaw that would likely bruise by morning. “Coach Foyet hates _Hotch_ , not us.”

 

Garcia squinted her gaze at him. “And, how is that better? Hotch is like our _dad_. We’re _so_ fucked.”

 

“Yeah, that’s fair,” Luke agreed unhelpfully, licking at the painful-looking cut in his lip with a contemplative expression on his handsome features. 

 

“Wednesday Addams?” Emily muttered under her breath then, shaking her head. “I don’t even know who that _is_.”

 

Garcia gasped at that, loud and dramatic. “Em, you’ve _never_ seen the Addams Family? _Ever?_ “

 

Emily blinked. “The what now?”

 

Garcia squealed, bringing her hands together with a loud _clap!_ “Oh. Em. _Gee!_ You _adorable_ little starfish. Okay, so—"

 

Just then the door opened, a poofy blonde head of hair poking itself out into the hall, frosty blue eyes eyeing them up and down in a rather disconcerting stare. 

 

“Come in, children,” the woman said, her syntax icy and uncompromising—scrambling over themselves to get up and look presentable, they did, filing one after another into the decently-sized office. 

 

(Though, as it was, it was still a bit cramped.)

 

Then, with Morgan and Spencer sitting down in the two chairs provided on their side of the desk, the rest of them stood in a cluster around the two boys, fidgeting and squirming uncomfortably under the icy-blue stare of Principal Strauss, dressed impeccably in a navy blue skirt-suit combo that served well to bring out the wintry cerulean of her irises, thereby making her chilling gaze all the more threatening. 

 

_Well, shit_ , JJ thought, absentmindedly flexing her right hand, where soreness had begun to set in around the knuckles. _New group home, here I come_. 

 

— —

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> ahahah i had a lot of fun writing this bit


	6. ohana

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> They all get chewed out pretty bad by Principal Strauss, but at the end of it all, JJ realizes something important: that she's not alone anymore. 
> 
> Also, Spencer is crazy smart. (Though, to be fair, is that really news to anyone?)

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> ok i had kinda left this on pause but a couple people requested it and idk i didn't realize people were actually getting into this!! so uh
> 
> kinda short but here's a new update

“Your behavior was unacceptable,” Principal Strauss informed them, her tone chilly and devoid of remorse. 

 

JJ swallowed thickly, resisting the urge to shiver in place—the rest of the kids, for their part, remained radio silent. 

 

Principal Strauss heaved a sigh at that, idly tracing a square-ish silver paperweight sitting atop her desk with dainty fingers. “Someone could have been seriously hurt—"

 

“ _Kevin_ was seriously hurt!” Morgan exploded then in an indignant tone, eyes flaring dangerously even under Principal Strauss’ distinctly unimpressed stare. “All due respect, ma’am, but we are _not_ the bad guys here.”

 

Principal Strauss cocked a single brow. “Oh? Tell me, Mr. Morgan… Who was it that threw the first punch?”

 

JJ’s blood ran cold, a shrill ringing in her ears as a decidedly tense silence blanketed the room. 

 

Eventually, she sighed, knowing what she had to do—she’d known damn well that she wouldn’t find a home here, that all of it was too good to be true, anyhow. “I—"

 

“I did, ma’am,” Emily says firmly, and JJ has to fight to keep her eyes from bulging out of her head, because, _What?_

 

Principal Strauss nodded. “I see. Y—"

 

“No, Principal Strauss, I did,” Spencer piped up next, his voice weak and hoarse—instantly, everyone turned to look at him (including Morgan), shock written all across their features. 

 

Principal Strauss clenched her jaw at that, a skeptical expression overtaking her regal features. 

 

“You,” she stated flatly, voice dripping with caustic doubt as she stared the skinny boy down. “ _You_ threw the first punch."

 

Spencer nodded shyly, wide hazelnut brown eyes steadfastly downcast. “Y—”

 

“No, it was me,” Morgan interjected next, and Principal Strauss’ jaw tightened. 

 

“Oh, and I suppose that next, I’m going to hear that it was actually you, Mr. Alvez,” she gestured to an expressionless Luke, “and next, Ms. Garcia,” she glowered coldly at the girl in question, who merely blinked under her meticulous inspection, “and lastly, I suppose I am to believe that it was actually you who threw the first punch as well, Mr. Lynch,” she finished, throwing a reproachful look at a wide-eyed Kevin. 

 

Kevin gulped audibly. “Y-Yes, Ms.— _Principal_ Strauss, I did it.”

 

“No!” Garcia exclaimed. “ _I_ did it!”

 

“It was me!” JJ blurted out finally, cheeks flushed. “She’s lyin—"

 

“Uh, no, I _definitely_ did i—“

 

“Shut it, Alvez, _I’m_ the one who—"

 

“All of you, enough!” Principal Strauss thundered—immediately, they all shut up, whirling back around to blink owlishly at the stern woman. “You all have detention for the next month. No exceptions,” she growled, seeming satisfied with the round of profuse nodding she got in response. “I will also be placing a call to Mr. Hotchner, and if you think this is over, you are _sorely_ mistaken.” She paused dramatically then to glare around the room, icy blue gaze staring down each of them in turn. “Get out of my office, all of you. _Now_.”

 

JJ had never obeyed a command so quickly in her life. 

 

— — 

 

“What the hell was that?” JJ questioned with flagrant disbelief as they were walking home together from school (Kevin, Luke and Garcia taking the lead, while JJ and Emily hung back with Spencer and Morgan), not bothering to hide the urgency from her tone (even if it was rather daunting to be so unapologetically bold amidst a group of people she’d only just met). 

 

Emily gave her a strange look but otherwise didn’t respond whilst a matte-silver red pickup truck roared past them on the street, leaving behind the pungent scent of burning diesel in its wake.

 

“Whataya mean, sweet cheeks?” Garcia questioned in a lackadaisical sing-song tone, practically skipping down the sidewalk with a noticeably-less-enthused Luke and Kevin on either side of her, seemingly undeterred by the burning sun above and the stifling humidity permeating the air surrounding them. 

 

JJ resisted the urge to roll her eyes, uneasiness roiling in her gut as a cheerful Garcia promptly hung a right turn and began leading them down into a noticeably more suburban area, one JJ thought she recognized from earlier that morning morning. “You guys should have let me tell her what happened. _I’m_ the one who punched that kid first, not you guys.”

 

“Nah, it don’t work like that, Jay,” Morgan inputted easily from behind her, one arm casually slung around Spencer’s thin shoulders, a thoughtful look in his dark eyes. 

 

“Yeah,” Emily echoed, nudging JJ with an infectious white-toothed grin that JJ immediately returned despite herself. “We’re a family now.”

 

“Ohana!” Garcia sang joyously from the front, and, instantly, Kevin let out a groan even as Morgan chuckled. 

 

“ _Please_ don’t start—"

 

“Ohana means family, my fine, furry friends!” Garcia yelped animatedly, stopping in place and whirling around to fix JJ with a sunny smile, thereby causing all the rest of them to stop, too, clumped awkwardly in the middle of the sidewalk beneath the blessed cover of leafy-green foliage overhead. “And family means nobody gets left behind, or forgotten!”

 

Kevin sighed heavily from beside her, having turned back to face the rest of them as well, his crooked nose a mess of purplish bruising with rivulets of dried blood clinging to the peach-fuzz-ridden skin beneath either nostril, thick black glasses held together by various pieces of Scotch tape perched precariously upon his swollen nose. 

 

“ _One day_ ,” he lamented, turning his gaze skyward as if searching for some divine intervention. “I just wanted _one day_ without a Disney reference; is that really so much to ask?”

 

Garcia pouted, elbowing him in the ribs and pointedly ignoring the offended cry of pain she got for her efforts. “Shut it, Four Eyes.”

 

Kevin visibly blanched. “I took a _punch_ for you!"

 

Garcia raised a single brow. “And?”

 

“‘And’?” Kevin repeated, his tone frantic even as Garcia merely blinks, clearly unimpressed. “What do you mean, ‘And’? I’m like 90% sure my nose is _broken_ —"

 

“Oh, no, it’s 100% broken,” Luke added helpfully, breaking into a charming grin at the affronted glare Kevin immediately sent his way. 

 

“Brilliant—thanks, Alvez,” Kevin grumbled petulantly. “I—“

 

“Most likely, by the obtuse angle and relative mildness of the bruising, you’ve just fractured the upper lateral cartilage beneath your nasal bone,” Spencer’s timid voice entered the fray, a slight blush upon his well-defined cheekbones as they all turned to acknowledge him. “It’ll be fully healed within 3 weeks, granted you don’t re-injure yourself any further.”

 

_Jeez_ , JJ thought, eyes wide. 

 

Kevin, however, was significantly less impressed, if his next indignant complaint was anything to go by: “But what if I _die?_ "

 

Garcia rolled her eyes. “That’s not possible,” she retorted with a decisive snort, then stopped herself, eyeing a flushed Spencer with a curious (and decidedly tentative) look. “It’s… It’s not, right?”

 

Spencer’s wide brown eyes lit up adorably at the question, nervous energy rolling off of him in waves—it was as if JJ could literally _see_ the cogs in his brain turning, the endless permutations being calculated, the sheer amount of _knowledge_ that swirled around in the younger boy’s head, the kind that JJ knew very well she could never hope to retain. 

 

“Well, it’s obscenely uncommon, of course,” Spencer rambled, excitement steadily growing in his wavering tone even as Kevin seemed to grow paler and paler with every word, “but, there was this one case up in Brookfield, Wisconsin in 2009, where a perfectly healthy 15-year-old boy—"

 

“You know, Pretty Boy,” Morgan interrupted in an easy tone, his free hand coming around to pat lightly at Spencer’s button-down-clad chest. “Maybe we save that story for another time, huh?”

 

Spencer blushed deeply but nodded at that, shifting nervously on his feet and swaying slightly in Morgan’s grip. 

 

“See?” Garcia announced proudly, red-painted lips curved into a wide grin as she patted Kevin (who had a rather glazed-over look in his chestnut-brown eyes) comfortingly on the back. “Nothing to worry about.”

 

— —

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> i love their dynamic ok


	7. the perils of cooking

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> The kids band together and try to do something nice for Hotch. 
> 
> It... backfires.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> had some inspiration so another chapter so soon!! they'll prolly be pretty spaced out just cause i have a lot of stories to be working on right now plus work during the day buuuut
> 
> enjoy!

Luckily, Hotch wasn’t home quite yet—according to the other kids, he worked during the day out at the FBI headquarters in the city “kicking ass and taking names” (Garcia’s contribution) and “typically returned around 7:04pm on weekdays, depending largely upon the time during which he’d left that morning” (that was Spencer, of course).

 

They had trudged inside, run upstairs to drop their bookbags within their respective rooms, before returning back down to the homey living room housing a pair of worn (yet plush) leather sofas (a quick glance at a digital clock upon the coffee table between the two told JJ it was just past 3:50pm)—Morgan had called a ‘team meeting,’ and, by the slightly begrudging but primarily deferential air in the room once they’d all gathered, JJ could guess fairly easily that when Hotch was away, Morgan was the guy that called the shots; perhaps most importantly, he was the guy the other kids _trusted_ to call the shots, a distinctly important factor in its own right. 

 

That in mind, though, the moment he stood between either couch at the head of the coffee table with crossed arms and blueish bruising beginning to show through upon either cheek, calmly announcing in his low and indubitably charming baritone voice that “We’re going to cook Hotch dinner,” well… no matter the considerable respect the other kids all collectively seemed to harbor for the dark-skinned boy, no one was all that thrilled at the prospect of what he’d just proposed. 

 

(JJ couldn’t much blame them.)

 

“What?” Kevin had asked in an utterly mystified tone from his spot slouched gracelessly upon one of the two sofas, the garish purpled bruising upon his crooked nose beginning to spread generously into either eye socket, making his whole look quite the ensemble, what with the broken nose and the thick black glasses perched atop that looked to be holding themselves together in majority by generous helpings of foggy-white Scotch tape and a last-resort Hail-Mary kind of prayer.

 

Garcia, too, had looked something positively confounded (she sat just in between an affronted-looking Kevin and a furrow-browed Luke), painted lips parted to form a round ‘O’ shape—and, for the first time that JJ had ever really witnessed, it seemed she had nothing to say, which was interesting to observe, to say the very least. 

 

Emily, however, had no such qualms: “You’re kidding,” she remarked flatly, a single brow quirked, a firmness to her tone that made JJ shiver from beside her. “Right?”

 

Garcia, though she wasn’t talking, had come alive at that, gesturing wildly with animated movements towards Emily and staring meaningfully at Morgan, as if doing her very best to wordlessly show her support for Emily’s less-than-enthused response.

 

(JJ thought it was hilarious.)

 

“No,” Morgan had replied stubbornly, his jaw tightening, the toned muscles in his forearms flexing as if on cue. “It’s to—“

 

“I love your muscles,” Garcia interrupted dreamily, wide brown eyes fixed steadfastly upon the muscles in question, the girl seeming to have finally regained the ability to speak in order to contribute something of ~~absolutely no~~ importance to the discussion. 

 

Morgan had just rolled his eyes, but shot her a charming wink and the ghost of a smile anyhow. “Thanks, baby girl,” he acquiesced, before turning back to the rest of them, his features quickly growing more solemn as he did so. “Guys, I’m trying to help us out here. Hotch might not get as pissed if we do something nice.”

 

“Are you kidding?” Kevin questioned incredulously, his muffled voice even more nasally than usual (probably due to the whole ‘broken nose’ thing). “He’s too smart for that; he’ll see right through us!”

 

“Kevin’s got a point,” Emily added in tiredly with an almost imperceptible sigh, willowy pale hands fiddling absentmindedly with one another in her jean-clad lap. (Idly, JJ took a second to notice the state of her nails—or lack thereof, as it were; they were torn at the edges, shorter than even the most painstakingly-clipped nails, and dotted with dried crimson in some places where she thought Emily had probably bitten them until they bled. Still, JJ thought she was the most beautiful girl she’d ever seen.)

 

“Plus, none of us know how to cook,” Luke chimed in, his full (and slightly swollen) bottom lip finally scabbed over, dried blood tracing his chin that provided a rather stark offset to the decidedly intelligent and contemplative look upon his tanned features.

 

Morgan huffed, clearly annoyed. “I—"

 

“Cooking is just chemistry,” Spencer offered in a quiet voice from beside JJ, though, true to form, Morgan immediately shut up as he began to speak, affording him the attentions of all the other kids in the room. “Specific heat capacities, and meticulously calculated ratios, and—"

 

“Whose side are you _on?_ ” Garcia groaned dramatically, thereby cutting the shy boy off—Spencer flushed, but otherwise didn’t look all that offended or disquieted by Garcia’s prompt interruption; JJ guessed that that probably happened quite often, and Spencer knew by now that it had absolutely nothing to do with him, and everything to do with Garcia’s distinctly extroverted and hyperactive bubbly personality.

 

“There are no sides, mama,” Morgan retorted exasperatedly, uncrossing his arms to rub tiredly at his temples.

 

“But—"

 

“We’re doing this, alright?” Morgan said finally, in a way that brokered no room for argument. “End of story.”

 

And, just as Morgan had so decisively concluded, that was the end of it—because, now, here they were: raw chicken breasts littering the white-beige-colored tile flooring, a spattering of vivid orange-red cayenne pepper powder upon the ceiling (which, _What?!_ ), a stick of unwrapped butter sitting upon the granite countertop with a large bite-mark where Garcia had dared Luke to chomp off and swallow at least two tablespoons of it in one go, sickening retching sounds echoing from the restroom down the hall where Luke was audibly paying the price for doing something so painfully imbecilic, and a distinct scent of burnt meat permeating the air whilst Garcia screamed hysterically that they were all going to die (which didn’t exactly help the unadulterated frenzied atmosphere blanketing the kitchen at the moment).

 

(JJ thought it was something of a miracle that they hadn’t set off the smoke alarm yet—or, at least, that’s what she thought that circular plastic hub-cab was that sat installed just a couple inches to the left of the generous trail of cayenne pepper that was still sticking resolutely to the plaster ceiling for reasons entirely beyond JJ’s typically somewhat proficient skills of comprehension.)

 

So, it wasn't surprising, per se, that none of them turned to acknowledge that the analog clock mounted upon the opposite wall had since progressed to reach 7:04pm exactly, nor the relatively quiet telltale sound of the front-entrance lock turning and the door swinging open to reveal a stony-faced Hotch in a well-pressed suit with a sleek black briefcase in one hand and a fairly high-quality phone pressed solidly to his ear in the other—really, they had other things to be concerning themselves with… namely, the stovetop pan that had just caught fire (thereby inciting a fresh round of panicked screaming from a rather frazzled Garcia), the renewed retching from down the hall that echoed loudly to supplement their newest dilemma, and a grumpy-faced Morgan that had just returned back to the kitchen with a bright-red fire extinguisher in hand bellowing (unsuccessfully) for Garcia to move away from the stove so he could put the fire out. 

 

However, they _did_ hear when Hotch’s quiet deep voice murmured, “I’m going to have to call you back,” to whoever was on the other end, the man slowly retracting the phone from his ear and sliding it into his coat pocket as solemn dark-brown eyes observed the admittedly catastrophic scene before him with a degree of almost clinical indifference that had shivers running down JJ’s spine whilst all of them froze abruptly in place and turned to face their stoic supervisor. 

 

Hotch just stared wordlessly, and they stared back, and, when Garcia eventually squeaked out, “W-We can explain!” (which only succeeded in worsening the discontented crease between Hotch’s bushy black eyebrows) as the man's dark eyes scanned the disaster zone that had previously been the modest-quality kitchen, JJ swallowed thickly, dread building steadily in her chest. 

 

God, they were so fucked. 

 

— — 

 

“What's going on here?” Hotch inquired, voice deadly calm, features downturned to form a distinctly sour expression as he strode purposefully over to glare at them all properly—it was _terrifying_.

 

(JJ was sure that this was it—that this was the moment she’d see what kind of man he truly was, that he’d expose his true colors and prove himself to be the cruel monster she’d feared from the very start; she’d known to expect it, known that she couldn’t presume he’d remain the fair-tempered man she’d come to know over the past day or so, but, either way, there was something… scary about it. 

 

It was scary, because, as careful as she’d been about setting her ‘expectations’ bar as low as possible, she couldn’t deny the part of her that already felt something dangerously close to security when Hotch was in the room, the piece deep inside of her that already trusted the unflappable man in some capacity even as she knew it was quite possibly the most foolhardy conclusion she could’ve possibly arrived upon.

 

God, she hated being this intensely damaged and unsure.)

 

“I—"

 

Morgan’s (likely bullshitted) explanation was promptly cut off by another retch from Luke (followed by the _plop!_ -ing sound as the contents of the boy’s stomach fell into the toilet bowl), the nauseating sound of it reverberating throughout the kitchen and causing Hotch’s eyebrows to approach his hairline with startling haste. 

 

Spencer, who was sitting cross-legged atop the kitchen counter, shrunk even further into himself as Hotch’s glare traveled from person to person; JJ and Emily were standing side-by-side next to him, wide-eyed _“Oh shit!”_ expressions upon both their faces; Garcia was standing just beside the smoking stove that was now covered in poofy fleece-white spray from Morgan’s well-meaning attempt to extinguish their flaming attempt at dinner, the bubbly girl grumpily wiping her tongue with a slightly-charred paper towel where some of the fire-extinguishing chemicals had (unfortunately) entered her mouth in the midst of the insanity. 

 

Another audible retch had each of the kids collectively wincing, especially when Hotch’s frown increased with every strangled noise that echoed throughout the space—and, if you can believe it, the whole thing only got worse when, a second later, a roughly quarter-sized piece of raw cayenne-pepper-dusted chicken fat that had previously been stuck solidly to the ceiling, fell to the tile with a succinct _splat!_ , a mini cloud of orange-red spice ascending from the area of impact whilst all of them (Hotch included) looked on with expressions varying in degrees of abject horror.

 

_Yep_ , JJ thought as she observed the increasingly displeased look marring Hotch’s impassive features. _Now, we’re really fucked_.

 

— —

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> they're such idiots and i love them so much


	8. "they called sthpenther a sthchizo!"

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Hotch has a sit-down talk with the kids.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> sfdfj i updated this sooner than i thot!! cause right now life is crazy (i'm in an airport about to hop on a connecting flight to my college that i've never visited before) but i had time on the plane (didn't really do many edits tho) so uh
> 
> enjoy?

“I got a call from Principal Strauss on my way home,” Hotch speaks, calm and collected as ever, his impassive dark brown eyes darting to eye each one of them in turn—they’re sitting at the polished wooden dining table, now (even if it is kind of a disaster zone, just like the rest of the kitchen: littered with a generous spattering of bright orange cayenne pepper and dotted sparingly with globs of chicken fat). 

 

Luke is back, too, though he looks a little green, and there’s a tiny oval-ish blob of a suspicious-looking milky-yellow substance on his burgundy polo that has both Morgan and Spencer (both of whom are seated on either side of the queasy boy in question) scooting their seats not-so-subtly to the side in a rather transparent attempt to distance themselves from… whatever _that_ is. 

 

Honestly, JJ’s a little worried that any minute now, the poor boy’s gonna start yakking all over the table—which, considering how poorly things had been going up until now, she's (understandably) not all that keen on being a bystander to that particular catastrophe. 

 

Spencer looks just a hair shy of shitting himself, his hazel eyes wide like saucers (so as to effect a somewhat uncanny ‘deer in the headlights’ appearance), blazing-red cayenne pepper powder staining his starch-white button-down, his sallow features looking even more gaunt than usual. 

 

On the other side of a still rather suspect-looking Luke, a bruised-up Morgan seems to be faring somewhat better… though, not by all that much: there’s goopy white fire-extinguishing chemical smeared across his toned forearms, orange-ish powder dusting either of his pecs atop the black V-neck he’s wearing (JJ thinks it looks kind of funny, honestly—kind of like Cheeto powder covering each of his substantial man-boobs), an expression of clear consternation upon his supermodel-handsome features. 

 

Really, it only gets worse from there: Kevin’s at the head of the table opposite from Hotch, sporting an even uglier (and noticeably bigger) purple-yellow-blueish bruise spanning his now spectacularly swollen nose that’s since spread well into either eye socket (not even to mention the slapdash attempt at fixing his clearly broken glasses with Scotch tape); Garcia sits just adjacent to him with a wholly disoriented expression, lips parted to form a red-painted ‘O,’ fleece-white chemical goop and lurid fiery powder smeared across her dress and pale arms in equal parts. 

 

JJ’s next to her, and, as hard as she tries to keep her emotions in check, she can’t help the all-encompassing fear that rises steadily in her chest, seeping like ice into her veins, chilling her to the very bone—it’s too much, it’s too much, it’s too _much_ , and JJ sincerely doubts that she’s hiding her profound disquiet super well (or at all, really). 

 

Lastly, there’s Emily on JJ’s right side—who, interestingly enough, seems to find the whole thing rather funny (though JJ supposes she can’t quite blame her for that): cayenne powder adorns her pert, angular nose (which makes for an interesting contrast to the crimson V-neck she’s wearing), and her wine-red lips are pursed tightly together in a (evidently failing) attempt at hiding her amusement as her entire form wracks itself with silent laughter. 

 

“We’re grounded, aren’t we?” Luke pipes up weakly, his left eye twitching even as his tongue darts out to wet the bloodied split in his lower lip. 

 

Hotch doesn’t react—well, physically, anyhow; his expression remains frustratingly stoic, his solemn brown-eyed gaze steady and unwavering, his posture ramrod straight (not even to mention the fact that he still looks like the super-secret government agent he is in a pressed matte-black suit and matching tie). 

 

He’s utterly impossible to read, and JJ finds that that only serves to make her rising anxiety all the worse. 

 

“She says that the seven of you started a fight in gym class… an ‘abhorrent and unceremonious brawl,’ I believe, were her exact words,” he informs them evenly, though there’s a subtle yet undeniably contrasting twinkle in his brown eyes that implies he’s… _bemused_ , in some sense. 

 

(JJ thinks that she’s probably imagining things.) 

 

“In addition to that, I did end up receiving a rather unpleasant email from Coach Foyet this afternoon which detailed the incident in question… and, in rather colorful language, I might add.” The entertained sparkle in his dark gaze seems to grow, and now, JJ is _sure_ she’s imagining things—and, all the while, the nauseating fear within her gut only intensifies with every word. “So, I want you—any of you—to tell me: exactly what is it that happened in that gymnasium?”

 

His question is bewilderingly neutral, devoid of any air of accusation—he sounds almost… _genuine_ , like he really _wants_ to hear their side of things, even as JJ knows that that’s likely the most far-fetched (not to mention painfully idiotic) hope she’s dared herself to have in a very long while. 

 

Still, none of the other kids (with the exception of Spencer) seem to harbor the same hesitance that she herself is so overcome with—a second later, and Kevin is blurting out, “It’sth _stho_ not our fault!" in an even more nasally tone than usual from the opposite end of the table, which subsequently results in JJ feeling overcome with the rather powerful urge to smack herself in the forehead.

 

Morgan nods emphatically along with that, leaning himself forward to fix Hotch with an intent stare—Hotch, predictably, doesn’t flinch or move a single muscle, and JJ thinks idly that he’s probably one of the most impressive men she’s ever met… if not for his character (she still has yet to decide if he’s truly as valiant as he seems, or just a particularly well-hidden abusive monster), then for his everlasting composure, because, seriously, it’s unlike anything else she’s ever seen. 

 

“Seriously, Hotch, we didn’t even—“

 

“Well, okay, so we did _technically_ throw the first punch,” Garcia chimes in oh-so-helpfully, and instantly, both Morgan and Luke are whirling around to fix her with matching glares—she flushes pink under their respective glowers, mouth opening and closing like a fish on land as she attempts to (presumably) fix her slip. “I mean, well, Hotch-Man, you _know_ I’m not a proponent of violence in any capacity, but we—"

 

“They called Sthpenther a sthchizo!” Kevin hastily interjects in something of a half-shriek, and Spencer visibly flinches at the abrupt reminder. (Honestly, JJ’s just impressed he managed to understand all of that—because, really, Kevin’s lisp is growing worse by the second, and JJ wonders if maybe he bit down too hard on his tongue when one of the jocks punched his face in.) “And—"

 

“Plus, I used those pressure points you taught us,” Emily jumps in then, an earnest ( _adorable_ ) expression upon her sharp features, chocolatey-brown eyes wide with sincerity—still, Hotch’s somber expression doesn’t change. (At this point, JJ can’t tell if it’s because he’s upset, or just because that’s what his ‘listening face’ looks like. Really, it could go either way.) “And Morgan’s punching form was really good—"

 

“And, you know, I feel like it’s important for me to say” Garcia interrupts, waving her hands (each fingernail painted a startling neon pink) around in a desperate attempt to get her point across. “Not all of us were fighting, okay—Hotch-Man,” ( _God_ , JJ thinks, _Garcia really needs to stop calling him that_) “ _I_ was advocating for _peace!_ “

 

Hotch’s bushy brows raise incrementally at that, and JJ blinks, taken aback, because—seriously? _That’s_ what makes him finally react? 

 

“Is this true?” he questions eventually, his steady gaze coming to rest upon a visibly uncomfortable Spencer, no real emotion playing out on his stoic features—JJ can’t help but hold her breath in the immersive silence that follows, because, her working theory as of yet is that this middle-aged ‘Hotch-Man’ tends to suppress each and every emotion in a rather common practice for abusive fathers and violent men with pronounced anger-management issues all across the board… which inevitably means that, when he crashes—when he _explodes_ , really, and weathers the entirety of his untapped fury upon the rest of them, it’s not going to be pretty, to put things lightly. 

 

(To be more frank, it’ll be violent and devastating and fucking _scary_ beyond words can say, and, God help her, but JJ doesn’t think she’s ready for that.

 

Not now. Not so soon after Dale, and Ros, and a shaky start in an unfamiliar place she’s terrified she’ll never get to call ‘home.’)

 

But, Spencer manages a shaky nod, swallowing thickly and darting his wide hazel eyes up to meet Hotch’s for a split second before promptly returning to his lap. “Y-Yes, that’s accurate.”

 

Hotch gives a curt nod in reply, and JJ feels herself growing rather faint and dizzy—she still hasn’t drawn a single breath since Hotch had questioned their collective integrity (not that JJ blames him for that, of course), and maybe it’s unhealthy but she can’t make herself breathe, can’t make herself relax for even a second, not when an all-too-familiar danger is so imminent, one she’s not sure she can endure without losing herself entirely. 

 

(And, she’s seen firsthand what happens when someone lose themselves: deep vertical cuts carved into pale wrists, pink-tinted bath water, the permanently glazed-over look in those cerulean-blue eyes JJ used to know better than her own that haunts her now like a vengeful specter throughout everything she does. 

 

She doesn’t want to go that way, too—not after she found Roslyn bleeding out in the tub when she was eleven, not after she walked in to see her mother’s lifeless body hanging from the ceiling on the early morning of what would’ve been Roslyn’s 20th birthday, not after she’s long since come to the realization that this life is not her own, that it’s just as much Roslyn’s and her ma’s as it is hers, because she owes it to them to stay behind since they couldn’t, to kick and temper and _fight_ since they can’t do it themselves any longer.)

 

“I’m proud of you,” Hotch tells them evenly then, and JJ’s _sure_ she’s hallucinating—after all, an over-active imagination is indeed a commonly denoted side-effect of oxygen deprivation, and, really, there’s no way he really— “I’m proud of _all_ of you,” he states firmly, his dark gaze flitting around to eye each of them in turn—JJ has to bite the inside of her cheek _hard_ to keep herself from squirming under his weighty inspection. 

 

“You stuck together, and you rose to the challenge when someone came after one of our own.” JJ doesn’t miss the way he says ‘our’ instead of ‘your’; it’s confounding, and perplexing, and God, but JJ can’t help but wish she knew if he was safe or just scarily-adept at hiding his violence. “And, really, I would make the argument that that’s high up amongst the only things that truly matter.”

 

( _What is this guy, a poet?_ )

 

“So… “ Luke trails off, drawing out the single syllable and watching Hotch with a tentatively hopeful expression (though there’s still a fair amount of queasiness present upon his boyish face). “We’re _not_ grounded, then?”

 

Hotch’s lips twitch, that bemused sparkle returning in his dark irises. “Oh, you’re _definitely_ all grounded,” he remarks dryly, his thin lips curving into the ghost of a smirk as groans erupt from most everyone at the table. (JJ’s sure she’d have joined in if she weren’t in such a state of downright shock, because, really— _did that just happen?_ ) “But, I don’t want you to forget that I’m proud of you guys—you were right to come to Spencer’s aid, even if I don’t quite agree with how you went about it.” 

 

JJ feels her cheeks flush at that, though she can’t tell if it’s from the subtle note of disapproval in his tone or the entirely unsolicited _praise_ —either way, she feels almost… warm inside— _secure_ in a way she hasn’t felt since Ros was alive and her ma still wore the brightest smile in everything she did. 

 

She can’t decide if that’s good or just terrifying. 

 

— —

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> hotch is such a softie i love him


	9. fabio

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Detention goes pretty much as expected, the kids are all in kind of low spirits, and JJ misses Ros.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> ok um had people wanting me to come back to this story and honestly i might be able to work on this once i take my final in seven hours cause it's my last one and then i dont go home for a hot minute so 
> 
> maybe some more writing stuff? we'll see
> 
> but as is, i really should be studying sdlfkjfldkj i'll come back and edit this later

The day after that is fairly ordinary, as ordinary goes—JJ wakes to a sharp knock on the door from Hotch at 7:00am on the dot, relentlessly bugs a groaning Garcia until she too manages to roll herself out of bed, attends her classes (the moppy-haired brunette with icy-blue eyes stares her down as per usual); except, this time, instead of meeting the other kids at the flagpole to embark upon their collective walk back to the house, she’s trudging beside an impressively-aloof Emily down the halls to room 134, where they’ll be serving the next two hours of detention under the heavy-browed supervision of none other than Coach Foyet, who sits munching aggressively on another obscenely greasy burger with his megaphone sitting primly upon the linoleum flooring just beside his chair as they enter. 

 

He’s wearing a rather obnoxious blue-and-red matching pair of sweats that make for an interesting juxtaposition when weighed against the imposing scowl marring his aged features, the hardened look in deceivingly soft brown eyes, not even to mention the way his thin lips curl even further into a snarl as JJ files in along with the rest of her housemates. 

 

(If JJ hadn’t already known it before, she’d be more than sure of herself now that she did not like this ‘Coach Foyet’ character.)

 

Though, it’s also worth mentioning that, in a somewhat startling change of pace, Luke is already there when JJ and Emily file in with Morgan and Garcia and Kevin trailing lazily behind, the athletic Hispanic boy’s large muscled form dwarfing a standard-sized wooden desk in the second row just to the left of a nervous-looking Spencer (though, admittedly, that part—Spencer, that is—is significantly less of a surprise).

 

“You’re late,” Coach Foyet growls in a low, gravelly tone as Emily and JJ find seats just behind Luke and Spencer respectively, and Morgan collapses into a chair just two down from Spencer, while Kevin and Garcia both take up residence side-by-side in the back right corner of the classroom, right near the only two available outlets in the space (excluding th e one just behind Coach Foyet’s desk).

 

“Sorry!” Garcia squeaks out from the back of the classroom, harried and high-pitched and full of genuine apology. 

 

(JJ can’t help wanting to turn around and give the girl a hug for that.)

 

Coach Foyet merely grunts. “You know the rules,” he rumbles in a bored tone, absentmindedly eyeing the greasy unwrapped half-eaten burger upon his desktop before darting his callous gaze up to glare at each of them in turn. (JJ has to fight the urge to viscerally shudder when his cold coffee-bean eyes land on her, even if it only lasts for a second or two.) “No talking, no laughing and/or smiling, and no stupid questions. Capisce?”

 

JJ sees Morgan’s jaw clench out of her periphery even as Luke shifts in his seat and raises a single well-toned caramel-hued arm in the air.

 

(JJ silently begs him to lower it.)

 

Coach Foyet’s eyes narrow—letting out a heavy sigh, he directs a vague nod towards a still somewhat battered Luke before snarling out, “What is it, Fabio?” in a distinctly disinterested monotone, the harsh sound of it (and coming from a blatantly combative authority figure, no less) more than enough to send disarming chills down JJ’s spine despite herself. 

 

There’s silence for a moment or two, and then “‘Fabio’?” Luke is asking in a hesitant tone, chocolate brown eyes wide with adorably sincere confusion, the boy clearly floundering. (JJ doesn’t much blame him.)

 

“And there we have our first stupid question,” Coach Foyet announces sardonically, arms spread wide as he settles back further in his chair; JJ sees Luke’s broad shoulders tense beneath his fitted red T-shirt in response. “Would anyone else like to give it a go, or are we done here?”

 

Silence in reply. (JJ wordlessly prays that it’ll stay that way, because really, she doesn’t want to see this get any worse than it already is.) 

 

“Wonderful. Welcome to detention, morons.”

 

— — 

 

JJ thinks it’s something of a miracle, but they make it through their first day of detention without incident—two agonizingly long hours later finds them all trudging back home through the relatively cool (though slightly humid) afternoon, more or less silent even as they stray farther and farther from the school behind them (still likely housing an unrepentantly ill-mannered Coach Foyet), its blocky form fading out of sight before long. 

 

It’s Garcia who eventually breaks the silence. (JJ doesn’t think that that’s much of a surprise to anyone.) “Is it just me, or did Coach Foyet seem kind of… “ she trails off as she turns to address both JJ and Emily walking beside her down the sidewalk, pinching her usually bubbly expression into one of visible disgust, “ _nice_ today?”

 

Luke snorts from just ahead of them where he leads them on their way beside a radio silent Spencer and a grumpy-looking Morgan. “‘ _Nice_ ’?”

 

“Are you stheriousth?” Kevin squeaks from directly behind them, his voice wrought with palpable disquiet. 

 

Garcia shrugs. “Well—"

 

"You heard him call us ‘morons,’ right?” Morgan supplements grouchily then without turning back, and Garcia pouts her pink-glossed lips in response. 

 

“I’m trying to be _positive_ here, Morgan,” Garcia protests levelly, penciled-in brows furrowed even as her airy voice remains devoid of any kind of real anger. 

 

Morgan sighs at that, turning back for a split second to shoot her an apologetic look. “You’re right, babygirl. I’m sorry. I didn’t mean to snap at you.”

 

(Something about it is almost charming, JJ thinks—familiar.) 

 

“Are you okay?” Emily asks gently, then, eyes trained upon the charcoal grey T-shirt-clad back of Morgan’s tall figure just in front of her as they walk. 

 

Morgan’s stable gait doesn’t change. “Just frustrated.”

 

“I don’t wanna do thisth for a whole month,” Kevin bemoans petulantly from behind as Morgan and Luke turn them onto the ever-so-slightly cracked sidewalk of a vaguely familiar-looking suburban street—really, JJ can’t find it in herself to argue with him there… and, it seems that no one else really can, either, because they’re all quiet in lieu of response to Kevin’s grievance as they continue to walk down the street, the only sound the rhythmic pattering of their sneaker soles hitting the pavement all the while. 

 

“Do you think Hotch will be home?” Morgan breaks the silence after a while, his question seemingly directed at no one in particular as the familiar cabin-like appearance of the group home just up ahead, just beneath the worsening glare of the afternoon sun still high and proud in the blue sky. 

 

“Probably not,” Emily replies quietly from JJ’s side. 

 

Morgan seems to take that answer at face value, if the ensuing silence on his part is anything to go by. 

 

JJ’s heart begins to clench painfully in her chest whilst they cross the street as a group (though not before Garcia makes them all look left and right, and back left again) and clamber up the wide cement-paved driveway—though, for why, she isn’t quite sure. 

 

A part of her suspects it’s the change in routine, no matter how apparently insignificant—the fact that they’re arriving back a hell of a lot later than they normally do, causing some inexplicable piece of her brain to think that that change will inevitably correlate with another one… a _worse_ one. 

 

(Heaven knew it most always did, where JJ’s life was concerned.)

 

She’s scared, she realizes as she numbly watches Morgan punch in the garage code and the wooden door of it beginning to rise with a creaking metallic noise. She’s so fucking _scared_. 

 

She’s scared of what she’s coming back to, because coming back late used to mean arguments with her drunk father, arguments that escalated all too often into angry footsteps chasing her around the farm house and his rough calloused palms tightening unforgivingly around her throat when he finally caught her and a teary-eyed JJ begging him not to kill her even as his sweat-damp grip got tighter around her throat and her vision turned black around the edges and she wasn’t sure whether it was worth fighting death any longer, because whatever that meant for her, it had to be better than this. 

 

_Fuck_ , she thinks as she follows the rest of the kids into the darkened single-car garage (not currently housing Hotch’s all-black government-issue SUV, meaning Emily was right about him still being gone), fear gripping her chest and constricting her throat until she wants so badly to leave, to run away and never come back, no matter what that costs her. 

 

She wonders, too, if this is all a mistake. 

 

Morgan, Spencer, Garcia, Hotch… _Emily_.

 

(God, she hopes not.)

 

— — 

 

JJ doesn’t sleep that night. 

 

She tries, obviously—God, does she try. 

 

But she tosses and turns until hours past and Garcia’s mild snores fill the darkened room, and still: nothing.

 

The sheets are warm (almost _too_ warm) against her bare skin, and suddenly she’s regretting that she only ever tended to wear a small grey pair of cotton shorts and T-shirt to bed (with tonight being no exception), because it’s getting so _hot_ and she isn’t wearing anything that even remotely conceals every line of her slim athletic figure and it doesn’t get any better when she flings the covers away from her body in some desperate attempt to help because her lungs still feel like they’re collapsing in her chest and a barrage of less-than-savory thoughts are bombarding her exhausted brain from every angle and she wants so desperately for it all to stop even as she knows it won't. 

 

(Oftentimes, she’s downright terrified it never will.)

 

She’s not sure what it is, whether it’s the exposure or the unfamiliarity of a place she doesn’t quite know yet or just another instance of all her emotional damage sending her into a mental tailspin—either way, it’s suffocating and unsettling and downright _terrifying_ all in one, and God help her, but she can’t handle this. 

 

She pries open the door with trembling hands, cringing internally at the bright yellow-ish sliver of light that comes through as she slips herself hastily out into the well-lit hall, feet bare upon the nicked hardwood flooring beneath her. 

 

She shuts the door behind her with an audible _click!_ (and prays to a god she’s not quite sure she believes in that no one heard it), before padding silently to the left down the hall—there’s a modestly-sized bathroom at the end of it, the one she and all the rest of the kids took turns using in the mornings; she’s more grateful than words can say to note that it’s unoccupied for the current moment.

 

This door shuts more quietly behind her this time (though there’s still an audible noise that makes her wince) as her hand pats at the wall in search of the light—seconds later, the rectangular fluorescent light attached to the ceiling flickers on, casting an almost eery blue-ish light upon as she dazedly catches sight of her reflection in the wide mirror above the sink. 

 

It’s strange, she thinks. Her reflection, that is. 

 

Strange, as in, something fundamental deep within her feels as if it doesn’t quite belong to her… which is pretty darn stupid, she thinks, because she knows better. 

 

Her tanned arms, thin and slim and delicately toned after years of working odd jobs on the farm; the straight locks of blonde hair that fall daintily across her clothed shoulders, slightly mussed in the back from hours of tossing and turning in her bed; her face, with wide blue eyes and pouty pink lips and that painfully average nose she’d always hated. 

 

Her reflection, that girl staring unseeingly back at her… she looks _normal_. Pretty, almost. (Dale always said so.)

 

She doesn’t look like JJ, not right now. (Honestly, she hasn’t for quite some time.) 

 

Idly, she wonders what Ros would think of her right now, if she were here. 

 

JJ misses her more than anything. 

 

— —

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> something about this chapter was just like,,, idk i personally didn't like it much and every word order and sentence i wrote just seemed so bAD to me when i read through it quickly 
> 
> i'm really sorry i tried my best and idk maybe i didnt like it but i hope you did:)


	10. the morality of suicide

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> JJ can't sleep, and the class discussion on 'the morality of suicide' in her Theories of Justice course doesn't go all that well.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> new chapter? so soon?
> 
> yea i'm surprised about it too
> 
> (also happy new year everyone<3)
> 
> oh and alSO trigger warning for this chapter on a rather frank discussion of suicide. so pls stay safe and know your own limits. good? good.

JJ stays awake most of that night—tossing and turning anxiously in her bed, listening to the rhythmic sounds of Garcia’s breathing (punctuated by a few light snores here and there), employing every technique in her arsenal in a desperate bid to make herself just _sleep_. 

 

She gives up after a while, though (it’s not as if she’s getting anywhere), and creeps out of the room once again on bare feet, moving as silently as she’s able down the wooden staircase and listening dutifully for any sign of Hotch or the other kids all the while—things are so _still_ in the common areas as she patters carefully out onto the darkened ground floor, so quiet and calm and _tranquil_ in the dead of night (… if not the tiniest bit eerie). 

 

She bypasses the living room and pads into the kitchen without really knowing why, all its familiar appliances (now spotlessly cleaned after the whole attempted ‘cooking’ incident) shrouded in darkness, phosphorescent moonlight streaming through the large bay windows stationed just beyond the vacant dining table—it’s calming, somehow, if not more than a tad ominous. 

 

She doesn’t switch on the lights as she gingerly hefts herself up to sit atop the cool granite countertop of the kitchen isle, partly because she doesn’t quite feel comfortable doing so in a place that still doesn’t yet feel like home, and partly because there’s a not-so-small piece of her that likes the darkness permeating her surroundings, the perceived anonymity (even when there’s no one around for her to remain anonymous unto) it effects upon her battered insides.

 

It’s safe in the dark, where shadowy blackness seeps into every corner of the world, where it feels as if no one will see her so long as she remains still, where no one will have the chance to cause her harm, not if she doesn’t willingly invite it upon herself. 

 

(Admittedly, there’s something morbidly tempting about that, about unfamiliar hands pulling at her skin, a stranger’s heated breath ghosting across her flesh, someone entirely different to erase Dale’s fiendish touch from her body whether she truly wants it for the right reasons or not—even JJ isn't foolish enough to deny that.)

 

The ordinary analog clock mounted upon the wall just over the bay windows reads 3:14, and JJ likes that, she thinks. 

 

She likes existing here, where it’s late enough that no one has any good reason to be awake, where night is at its darkest just feet away from her trembling form, where things feel… surreal, almost. Not quite so heavy; ethereal, even.

 

She stays like that for hours, curled up atop the kitchen isle, just allowing herself to exist within a certain medium that doesn’t leave her feeling nearly so exposed and weak and _powerless_ as she was before. 

 

She only returns when the darkness outside turns a temperate shade of violet, when the suburban street becomes visible through the large bay windows just ahead, when she thinks she can almost see the morning sun creeping gradually over the horizon—only then does she creep back upstairs and into her room where gentle sunlight illuminates its interior and Garcia’s quiet snores fill the modest space, collapsing atop her mattress and not bothering to cover herself with blankets before sleep takes her. 

 

The dreams stay away, then. (It’s almost as if they can't reach her now, where the light of day lingers.)

 

She doesn’t see Dale, or Ros, or Papa, even.

 

She doesn’t see anything. 

 

— — 

 

“Jayje?” a vaguely familiar voice comes from somewhere off in the distance. “Jayje? C’mon, we gotta get up."

 

She thinks she feels someone nudging her, then, though she’s still far too disoriented to tell for sure. Her body feels heavy (inhumanly so), like it’s stone rather than flesh—like _she’s_ stone rather than flesh. 

 

“Jayje?” Another nudge. “C’mon, hon, Hotch knocked on the door fifteen minutes ago.”

 

_Hotch_ , her faint consciousness repeats. _Why does that name sound so familiar?_

 

“Jayje, c’mon.” 

 

_Wait a second_.

 

_Hotch. FBI man. The worst case of Resting Bitch Face documented since Grumpy Cat became a thing_. 

 

_Shit_. 

 

JJ jolts awake with a start, nearly colliding skulls with a wide-eyed and concerned-looking Garcia, who’d been leaning right over her where she lay whilst desperately attempting to rouse her. “ _Shit!_ "

 

Garcia squeals in fright as she stumbles back, clutching frantically at her blue T-shirt clad chest right around where her heart would be, as if she’s having a terribly premature heart attack right here, right now, at the ripe old age of 17. “ _Fiddlesticks!_ ” 

 

JJ rubs at her bleary eyes, Garcia’s sunlit form gradually coming into focus even as she can feel her face flushing with embarrassment. “… Hi,” she croaks out lamely, by way of greeting.

 

“Oh my _God_ , Jayje—you scared me!”

 

JJ feels her cheeks heat even further. “I—Sorry. I didn’t mean to.”

 

“Oh, it’s okay, darling,” Garcia assures her easily, though she does still seem more than a little bit out of breath. “I just… Wow. What a way to wake up, huh?”

 

JJ manages a smile as best she can. (She’s afraid it turns out looking more like a pained grimace than anything else.) “Indeed.”

 

“Well,” Garcia continues on, seemingly undeterred as she turns to cross back over to her side of the room, yanking open the top drawer of her dresser and rummaging through its contents, “at least it’s Friday, right?”

 

“… Right.”

 

— — 

 

Really, with everything that’d been happening over the past day or so, JJ had almost forgotten about her Theories of Justice course, with the suspiciously kind Dr. David Rossi and the upcoming class discussion on the morality of suicide…. _almost_. 

 

Because as soon as the school’s blocky structure comes into view, she’s reminded profoundly of the strange boy with glassy ocean-blue eyes who stared at her like it was his job, and the blonde-haired principal that stared through each of them like she could see their very souls (and decidedly didn’t like what she saw), and this 'TOJ’ course she’d left behind… it all coalesces to make for a positively bitter sense of impending dread roiling in her chest as they draw nearer, and she’s becoming increasingly sure beyond a shadow of a doubt that she’s going to break today, just like she always feared she would. 

 

Exhaustion weighs heavily on her like the worst of guilty consciences, and she barely hears the rest of the kids’ chatter as they make plans to eat together during the lunch break; she knows she’s quite likely being melodramatic, knows that this shouldn’t affect her nearly to the degree that it does… still, the sour apprehension ferments painfully in her gut like foul-scented moonshine, and God help her but she’s not _ready_ for this, not today. Not now. (Maybe not ever.)

 

She hardly registers the concerned look Emily sends her way, nor the halted movements she makes to question JJ about it—but, the bell rings shrilly around the halls a moment later to signal five minutes until the block starts and tardy slips on baby-blue-colored paper are handed out to any stragglers left wandering the halls, and they’re all jolting into action, scattering like technicolored leaves on a brisk autumn wind to go their separate ways. (Really, the last thing any of them need right now is tardy slips to compound the month’s worth of detention they’re serving under Coach Foyet’s irritable eye.)

 

Approximately four minutes later finds her walking into Dr. David Rossi’s classroom on legs that feel for all the world as if they’re composed entirely of Jell-O, sliding surreptitiously into the seat nearest to the large rectangular windows spanning the wall just adjacent to a busy-looking Dr. Rossi at his polished mahogany desk, and pulling out a blank notebook (embellished with a sparkly purple mermaid’s tail against a glitter-blue ocean background) Garcia had lent her whilst she waited anxiously for class to begin. 

 

Luckily (or unluckily, more realistically), she doesn’t have to wait for very long—moments later, Dr. David Rossi is dropping the sleek silver fountain pen he’d been using to scribble notes at his desk and rising from his seat with an almost boyish grin to say, “Alright, is everyone here?”

 

He doesn’t get a response to that, but he also doesn’t quite seem to mind, if the way he chuckles heartily to himself is any indication. 

 

“Okay,” he declares, turning to the white board just behind him and uncapping the bright-red Expo marker he brandishes from his coat pocket—he writes the words ’THE MORALITY OF SUICIDE’ up on the board in a messy (but ultimately legible) script, and JJ swallows thickly in her seat. “Let’s begin.”

 

— — 

 

“It’s selfish and morally reprehensible,” one boy with shaggy dark-brown hair and round wire-rimmed glasses insists, sounding entirely unapologetic even as JJ’s stomach flops nauseatingly—they’ve only just begun their class-based discussion, but already JJ can tell that this isn’t going to be all that pleasant. "Kant says as much, because it’s using yourself as a means to an end.”

 

“Yeah, but, isn’t that a bit harsh?” questions an Asian girl with bleached-blonde hair and an athletic-looking build sitting two seats down from JJ. “Like, people who commit suicide are dealing with so much that we can’t even begin to understand, and I guess it just makes sense to them that killing themselves would be the only way out.” (JJ has to resist the urge to nod along with that.)

 

“I think it’s sort of cowardly, actually,” muses a mousy-looking girl with cute freckles and a pixie cut sitting near the door. “Like, I think everyone at some point or another has thought in some capacity, like, ‘Wouldn’t it just be better if I died?’, but that still doesn’t make it right, ‘cause no one else went through with it, so, why should we honor the people who did?”

 

“That’s not super empathetic, Edith,” murmurs a caramel-skinned girl with hazel eyes sitting just behind the girl in question.

 

The mousy-looking girl, Edith, shrugs inconsequentially and turns around to face her. “Maybe not, Ayesha, but maybe it’s what’s right. Maybe we should stop being so lenient towards people who take the easy way out. If anything, you could argue that it only encourages more people to do the same thing.”

 

“I agree with Edith,” adds the first boy from before, nodding agreeably and pushing his glasses further up his nose. “And Kant does, too."

 

“Well, maybe Kant was wrong, Jackson,” argues the athletic-looking Asian girl with bleached-blonde hair—and, maybe JJ’s not all that huge on physical contact as a means of reassurance, but God if she doesn’t feel like giving that girl the longest and warmest hug in the whole universe right now. “He’s just a random white dude from hundreds of years ago, and he has no idea what the world looks like today. So, why should we treat _his_ commentary like gospel over everyone else’s?”

 

JJ is relieved to see a couple of kids nodding in acquiesce to that, even as Edith and the bespectacled boy ( _Jackson_ , she reminds herself) open their mouths to counter (likely with something that’s either borderline or just outright blatantly insensitive concerning an all-too-sensitive topic they know little to nothing about). 

 

Fortunately, that strange boy from the corner of the classroom beats them to it, his cerulean-blue eyes fixed steadfastly upon JJ even as he addresses the girl two seats down in a decidedly Southern-sounding drawl: “Well, whose commentary should we be listenin' to, if not Kant’s?”

 

The girl plays absentmindedly with her No. 2 pencil as she purses her lips, not bothering to turn around to fire back, “How the hell am _I_ supposed to know, William? Sorry, Dr. Rossi,” she amends her crass language, a slight flush appearing on her tanned cheeks—Dr. Rossi just smiles back at her with a bemused twinkle in his brown eyes, apparently undeterred. "I just don’t think Kant’s word should be our end-all be-all.”

 

Ayesha raises her hand tentative from across the room before tentatively saying, “I agree with Eileen—“

 

“It’s ‘Yilin.’”

 

Ayesha blushes. “Sorry.”

 

“So, you’re saying, if Dr. Rossi gave me a bad grade on our next test,” Jackson begins, a dubious expression upon his plain pale features, "and I went and killed myself over it, then I would be entitled to a beautiful funeral service honoring me for the meaningful life I lived and even the juvenile behavior I enacted to end it?”

 

(JJ was really beginning to dislike this ‘Jackson’ character.)

 

“Yes, because we’re all human beings, and we should show a basic degree of compassion for each other,” Yilin reasons as if it’s the most obvious thing in the world, and JJ doesn’t miss the way Dr. Rossi’s enigmatic smile widens at that.

 

Still, Edith scoffs audibly at Yilin's humanistic response, speculating, “So we should just honor everyone, even the cowards, all because everyone’s a 'special snowflake’? Give me a break.”

 

“What if it was someone you cared about?” Yilin points out, clear indignation mounting in her previously level tone. “What if it was your little brother Elijah? What then? He’s _13_ , if I remember correctly. Are you just gonna say 'Screw him’ all because you’re chronically incapable of empathizing with people on a fundamental level?”

 

Edith’s face reddens with anger. “Screw you, Ellen.”

 

“That’s not my name, and you know it.”

 

“Why do you care so damn much?” Edith snaps back then, her face twisted into an expression of such sheer distaste, JJ finds herself shrinking reflexively in her seat, even relatively safe in the knowledge that it’s not directed towards her. “It’s not like anyone _you_ know offed themselves.”

 

(At the sudden turn in conversation, JJ thinks she's starting to feel rather sick to her stomach.)

 

“No, I don’t—”

 

“So, then, how can _you_ say anything to me about this?”

 

Yilin shrugs. “You don’t know anyone who committed suicide either. How can _you?_ ”

 

“I—"

 

“I don’t think _any_ of us do,” Jackson intervenes pompously then, a smug expression on his features, and JJ feels like punching him. “Right?” he questions boldly, sweeping his green-eyed gaze around the classroom. 

 

JJ isn’t sure what in the _world_ compels her, but, “I do,” she’s saying before she can stop herself, and suddenly every single person in the class is turning their incredulous gazes upon her, like they can’t quite believe what she’s just admitted. (JJ herself can’t really fathom it, either.) A tense silence fills the room, then, and JJ _knows_ she’s fucked up. Irreparably. She turns to Dr. Rossi (whose charming smile has disappeared entirely from his lined features) with pleading eyes, her cheeks flushed with profound embarrassment. “Can I please leave now?”

 

He simply nods in response, something almost akin to… apology glimmering in his dark eyes. “Of course, JJ.”

 

And, without further ado, she does—head down, cheeks burning, Garcia’s sparkly notebook clutched tightly against her chest. 

 

_God, I think I’m gonna be sick_. 

 

— —

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> the theories of justice course is based off one i actually took in high school
> 
> i'm not a very combative person by nature but i went to school with a lot of rich white kids in phoenix arizona who were die-hard trump supporters and huge proponents of the logic that 'i'm not racist; i just have _preferences_ '.... needless to say, literally so many of those class discussions had my blood absolutely boiLing by the end of the block
> 
> im actually so glad im in college now sldkfjsdlfkjd

**Author's Note:**

> as always, feedback would be awesome :)
> 
> (my [tumblr](https://psyches.co.vu/) or just search up @ultralightdumbass cause i'm on there a lot more often!)


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